Politico has a worthwhile piece on the Tea Party movement and how the religious right is responding.  Both movements are making waves in the GOP and both have very different agendas.  The Tea Party movement as far as I can tell, does not place as much emphasis on social issues like abortion and gay marriage than the religious right has over the years. 

The article reminded me of what seems to be missing in the GOP these days.  Being a gay Republican, I tend to like that the Tea Party folks are not so interested in going after gays.  That said, I’m less satisfied with how we as a society should address issues like entitlement reform or care for the poor.  As Christian, I like that there are some evangelicals that do want government to do something for the poor, but I then they tend to not really like people like me.

What is sorely missing in the GOP are voters that tend to be socially liberal, fiscally conservative and willing to see the government help those who are poor have a better life than they did.  I know that there are wags out there that will claim that such Republicans exist and are called Democrats, but the fact is, there used to be very die hard Republicans who were “pragmatic progressives” (I use the word, “progressive” in its old form, not in the new form which is a euphemism for “left”) when it came to the welfare of people.  New York Governor and Presidential candidate Thomas Dewey was one of the pragmatic progressive Republicans who in his time as governor did a fair amount for social reform. 

This is what Geoffrey Kabaservice had to say in a profile on him last November

:

Unlike the stalwarts who continued to dominate what little remained of the Republican representation in Congress in the ‘30s and early ‘40s, Dewey believed that the Depression had permanently reshaped the political landscape and that it was insufficient for Republicans simply to denounce the New Deal and hope in vain for the eventual disappearance of the welfare state. As Dewey said in his first gubernatorial address, “There has never been a responsible government which did not have the welfare of its people at heart… anybody who thinks that an attack on the fundamental idea of security and welfare is appealing to people generally is living in the Middle Ages.” As governor, he put forward social programs that included unemployment insurance, sickness and disability benefits, old age pensions, slum clearance, state aid to education (including the creation of the State University of New York), infrastructure projects (particularly highway construction), and pathbreaking anti-discrimination legislation.

Dewey attempted to distinguish his programs from similar Democratic programs by running a government that was acknowledged to be clean, honest, and efficient. His was pay-as-you-go liberalism, as he managed to implement his social programs while cutting taxes, reducing the state debt by over $100 million, and still achieving budget surpluses. He also argued that while Republicans and Democrats might agree on social ends, the parties would differ in their means, with moderate Republicans emphasizing individual freedom and economic incentive over collectivization. However, this relatively sophisticated position inevitably opened Dewey to conservative gripes of “me-tooism” and Democratic claims that he was offering a lesser version of the genuine article.

These days, such a combination of liberalism and fiscal conservatism, the kind that Ross Douthat hates, doesn’t have as much of a place in the party as it used to.

Of course, I tend to think it should.  What if there was a Thomas Dewey in Congress today that could come up with a viable alternative to the Democratic health care proposals that was able to cover everyone and bring down health costs and the over all deficit?  What if Republicans came forward with ideas that would preserve Social Security and Medicare, that would also save us from fiscal peril?

Maybe that will happen…someday.

Surely 2010 will go down in American history books as one of the more interesting years in American history.

2010 is in many ways a lot like both 1884 and 1992.

1884 gave us the Mugwumps - conservative and moderate Republicans that revolted and openly distanced themselves from the official choices of the Republican Party. In many cases the Mugwumps actively worked against Republican candidates, this includes even the Republican nominee for president. Unlike today, Mugwumps were a top down revolt of Republicans already elected that thought the party was on the wrong path.

1992 – how quickly we forget the anger that existed, to include real concern about our national debt. National polling shows that Americans were much more “angry” at the government back in 1992, significantly much more angry. That anger got channeled however through the candidacy of Ross Perot who stepped forward and very explicitly challenged the political establishment — with charts and predictions in hand Ross Perot made a difference. We later got “Contract with America” which turned out to be: vote us in, we promise to use all of your favorite buzzwords, and then we’ll do what is best for the party.

Ross Perot got my vote and the vote of 19% of America in 1992.

The lessons of 1884 and 1992 are that populist movements to reform government are usually shortlived. They can linger on for a few years; Ross Perot later formally founded the Reform Party which actually won some elections. We have some few remaining elected officials here in Virginia that are officially Reform Party … this is now a party footnoted in history.

Without structure and organization there is no future for a movement. Perhaps even with structure there is no future; witness the inability of the Libertarian Party to connect, or the Constitutionalist Party — the “fastest growing party in America” as it bills itself … I don’t think so.

So here we are at 2010. Anger we have plenty of, but alas no Ross Perot to represent us or any central personality capable of convincing America that someone with a name cares. There is no cross-generational Ronald Reagan, whom we literally had decades to know and to mature with and to evolve with. 2010 is all about chaos, impending financial entropy on a scale that we cannot yet imagine … although some are trying hard.

2010 is all about having to represent ourselves against the machine — and the machine is both red and blue.

Tea or coffee? Coffee or Tea?

Until now I have been uninvolved in the TEA Party movement. I don’t do anger. Anger blinds you and makes you do silly stuff. I’m a solutions person. I have never let not knowing what I am doing get in the way of achieving something. Until recently the TEA Party movement has largely been against and not for anything. That is changing.

The TEA movement is maturing, and now that the Republicans (Romney/Rove/Steele) have informed TEA Partyers that they really are Republicans and that they should act accordingly, there is more sober thought among TEAers to consider what comes next. Conservative Texas’ voter thumping of TEA candidates has also caused many TEAers to pause and to reflect.

Now comes this new creature: the Coffee Party. The premise of Coffee is that government is not the enemy. It may not have the answer, but it is not the enemy.

We are the government. If it is wrong then we are wrong. Coffee suggests that ‘we the people’ should focus our energies on helping guide government by being both its watchdog and by being involved. We must do more than be angry. We must be part of the solution.

So for me I will now get involved in both. Although many in TEA distrust Coffee, and certainly Coffee is in reaction to TEA, we are at a crossroads in American history. They both are a distraction and yet they both may hold answers.

One thing is certain: 2010 is the chapter that follows 1884 and 1992.

BTW #2 – Republicans claim to be serious about passing some form of a Balanced Budget Amendment if only we give them the chance. Really? Those two wild and crazy South Carolinians Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint (both R-SC) introduced a Balanced Budget Amendment in 2007. Surely you remember!? Don’t you? Surely you do. Anyway, Republicans always run to this ploy when politically in trouble. I believe that Graham and DeMint were serious about it — but where was the rest of the party?

It is not Social Conservatism. It is something that, wherever we are in the economic/governing ideological spectrum, most of us as reform republicans can agree on.  As the health-care bill continues in its congressional struggle and more and more eyes begin to look towards the 2010 elections, we start to see the basic and obvious themes that will more than likely dominate or play important roles in the races.  The Tea Party movement, and its populist conservative theme has already played an important role in the race for governor in my own home state.  Although there was a supposedly absolute “pure” tea party representative republican candidate in the form of Debra Medina who along with Kay Bailey Hutchison challenged the incumbent governor Rick Perry for the spot during the GOP primary, it was Rick Perry’s ability to harness a good deal of the energy that was the Tea Party being especially powerful here in Texas which played a key role in his winning of the primary.  Going a bit further back, it is possible that the Tea Party may have had some sort of impact on Scott Brown’s victory, although how much is not quite certain as national Tea Party support is a different perspective than that of the average Massachusetts voter.

This movement cannot be confused or assumed to represent the discontent of the state voters that put him in power in a traditionally Democratic state as while general discontent with the status quo was evident, most Massachusetts voters nevertheless did not want the healthcare bill because it lacked a public/government run option: a very different view than the anti-government tea baggers.  His voting along with the other New England Republicans for the jobs bill instead of joining a filibuster with the conservative majority of the minority party shows how whether he or the Tea Party movement likes it or not, he will have to represent from the center and be a centrist Republican if not a center-left liberal Republican as Mitt Romney was pre-2008 presidential primary race.  Now whether or not the movement will continue to play a major role in upcoming races for the final 2010 remains to be seen, but the basic message of anti-government which was in response to a potential public option laden healthcare bill may play a huge role.  This potential “vote against government” does not necessarily mean a libertarian-conservative view although that makes up part of it, but as the race in Massachusetts showed, it is a vote against how government is being run.  It therefore becomes a two-sided vote among those of rather different ideologies that has seemingly generated this anti-establishment atmosphere around the races.

At the roots of this is general discontent at the lackluster stimulus which has seemingly overall had only minimal positive impact at the cost of driving the already large debt even higher, which by the way is another concern.  Job growth and the ending of the recession will be a major variable in the whole equation come November which leaves out an interesting part of the ideological makeup that has dominated the conservative movement:  Social Conservatism.  There was no major play on social issues during the Scott Brown campaign, which surely would have sunk it in a state that is overall quite socially liberal, naturally dictating any real candidacy to be as such.  During the previous races of New Jersey and Virginia social issues did not take precedence as they did in the early millennial years and even victory by uber-conservative Rick Perry was done with barely a shout out for some evangelical crusade against…well something that would be seen as not socially conservative.  Let’s not make the mistake of saying that social conservatism is gone from politics as I had noticed that many of the Tea Party members at least in this state’s rallies were the same conservatives that voted for W. Bush for “morality and moral issues” and Tea Party candidates at least here in my state tend to automatically align with socially conservative issues.  Many of them are social conservatives, but in my observation social conservatism as we have known it during its rise in the 90’s to its climax in the ’04 elections to its modern day silence has run its course.

It may be because average Americans, while still having opinions on social issues realize that there is something more important to deal with than with whether or not their state allows gay marriage or whether abortion will determine presidential elections.  They may realize that it’s about jobs, a stable and growing economy; that it’s about our foreign affairs in the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and our nation’s ultimate future that is threatened by debt and an economically insecure future.  Again, social conservatism is not gone, and already some right-wing challengers have attempting to once again create a divide between themselves and opponents who may not share their religious views.  Regardless of how we view of the outcomes of the past few races whether it be from Massachusetts or here in Texas, whether it is about the Tea Party and it’s conservative-libertarian/anti-government hatred or a general discontent with how Democrats have failed to run (which includes those of centrist or even liberal leanings who believed that said party would run government appropriately), the basic message that may have started back in the New Jersey and Virginia races is simple:  It’s the basic ability in governance in order to pass bills from healthcare to creating jobs to a viable and secure economy.  It’s the running of government.  It’s the government…stupid.

The short answer? Probably no one.

It seems that way at times. Republicans tend to consider moderates and their liberal Republican cousins, traitors. Democrats profess their love of moderates usually years after they were in office.

The history of moderate Republicans is one that is not well known. It tends to be forgotten because in the battle between conservatives and moderates the winner (in this case, the conservatives) wrote the history. When they are remembered, it isn’t very fondly. While Ross Douthat is too classy to call Northeastern Republicans both past and present “RINOs” he basically has said that many times in blog posts and op-eds. He does so again today in a post about the current health care bill. This is his take on the current Senate bill and what kind of Republicans would like this bill:

The Senate legislation is the kind of bill that the early-1970s Richard Nixon might have backed, or the early-1990s John Chafee (who crafted a Republican alternative to Clintoncare), or (self-evidently) the Mitt Romney of 2005.

But keep in mind that the kind of “moderate Republicanism” (or “Rockefeller Republicanism,” to use a better term of art) that bound all of those figures together was often closer to a liberal Republicanism — a pro-business version of the prevailing liberal paradigm, that is, rather than a intellectually-distinct alternative. On domestic policy, Richard Nixon generally resembled a more cynical version of Lyndon Johnson, not a Ronald Reagan avant la lettre. (Is anyone nostalgic for the days when the Republican Party was “moderate” enough to favor wage and price controls? I hope not.) Likewise, John Chafee’s views on most domestic issues (like those of his son, and successor) bore roughly the same relationship to an ideologically-consistent conservatism that Zell Miller’s views on, say, defense policy bore to the liberal mainstream when Miller was a Democratic Senator from Georgia. And while conservative health-care wonks did have some input on Mitt Romney’s health care efforts, calling Obamacare a centrist-Republican proposal because it resembles a compromise forged in the nation’s most liberal state is still a little like claiming that the Bush tax cuts of 2001 were a centrist-Democratic effort because Ben Nelson voted for them.

Nelson Rockefeller might well have liked the current health care bill. So would Jacob Javits, Lowell Weicker and a whole generation of politicians for whom the point of being a Republican was to head in the same direction as the Democratics, but more slowly, with more attention to the concerns of corporate America, and with a greater zeal for balancing the nation’s books. But while I have all kinds of problems with what the contemporary Republican Party has become, and where it might be going, I can’t say I’m sorry that Rockefeller Republicanism no longer plays a major role in shaping the G.O.P.’s agenda. In the end, the country is better off with an opposition party that offers Americans a real choice — whether on health care or any other issue — rather than being content to supply a “moderate” and business-friendly echo.

I will agree that the Republicanism that Douthat disdains was responding to the then-dominant liberal paradigm. But responding to that era when liberalism was the main thrust in America doesn’t make one just simple echo. Their views are lost to history, but I’ve read books by some of those liberal Republicans that Douthat disses, and they stake out their positions. They had convictions and strong beliefs that were once part of the Republican party. Read Jacob Javits’ Order of Battle and you see a man that gives strong compelling reasons for why he was a Republican. One might read one of the many biographies written by Geoffrey Kabaservice on moderate Republicans to see that these moderates were not spineless.

Frankly, Douthat’s disgust for moderates in the GOP both past and present make no sense to me. Douthat has long argued that the GOP needs to adopt a more robust agenda. In the book he co-authors with Reihan Salam, he maps out a plan that would use the government to help the working class and the poor. It’s a worthwhile read. Douthat laments that Republicans have not yet taken this new agenda to heart and in looking at the current crop of Republicans, he is correct- they have no interest in his ideas. Of course, there is a certain sector of the party that might be interested, moderate Republicans. Mind you, the moderates he spurns came up with ideas in response to what the Democrats were proposing. They had an interest in dealing with poverty or trying to help the working class. They were interested in making sure that Americans had access to health care.

The problem is, Douthat expects that the current crop of Republicans will somehow come up with bold, new ideas that will rejuvenate the party. Well, Ross can keep waiting, cause it ain’t going to happen. It’s not that there aren’t conservatives in the GOP that are coming up with good ideas, but there aren’t enough of them to make a difference. Even if a conservative Republican comes up with an idea, like Bob Bennett of Utah and health care, he is attacked by outsiders for consorting with Democrats. How many conservatives have come up with a decent health bill?

I understand Douthat’s game. To maintain some gravitas in the conservative realm, he has to learn to take down moderates. But that means taking down the one group that has the passion and the willingness to carry the water for his ideas.

But maybe the thing that bothers me most is that while he shares his disgust of moderates over here, Douthat raves about the Conservative Party accross the pond. The rejuvenated Conservatives got that way because they started listening to their moderates. They decided to branch beyond the base instead of looking down on them.

The moderates of today can’t be the moderates of yesteryear. Moderates in the GOP from the 40s until the 70s were dealing with aftermath of the New Deal. Liberalism is no longer dominant, so moderates of today have to learn to respond to the current situation.

But the leaders of that time, the Javitses, Chaffees and Brookes, should not be looked down upon. They worked for the poor in urban areas, supported legislation that cleaned up our water and air, and helped African Americans gain their civil rights. These are achivements that should never be forgotten.

I don’t expect Douthat to ever be nice to moderates like me. After all, he has a reputation to maintain. But he also should not expect that the GOP will ever rise to dominance. Unless the Republican party listen and accepts the moderates in its midst, Douthat’s words will be like speaking to the wind.

There is a runoff election in Houston scheduled for April 13^th that will determine who will hold one of the most important political offices in Texas.  From that platform, the winner will be able to wield significant influence over the Party structure in that state and elsewhere.  It will receive very little press and almost no campaign contributions.  Few citizens will show up to vote.  What am I talking about?  First, a little background.

Years ago I was volunteering on a state-level Republican campaign in Houston.  The candidate struck me as a solid, reasonable guy.  His conservative credentials were strong, but he also seemed to have enough realism and good sense to have a chance to accomplish something.  We were looking to take a long-standing Democratic district and he seemed like our best shot.

One evening we were discussing his frustrations over campaign signs being stolen and other petty vandalism.  He explained to me casually that Democrats do these things because they have nothing “beyond this life.”  I was confused at first and thought I hadn’t heard him right.  He went on to elaborate on how Democrats used dirty tactics because they have nothing to look forward to but this material existence, while we (Republicans???) had our eyes on an eternal life so the things of this world were less important to us.  I see…

I ended the conversation as gracefully as possible.  What struck me most was the fact that this was not an intimate chat between longtime friends.  If he was saying this to me then he felt safe saying this to practically anyone.

Perhaps comments like that from a relatively moderate Republican officeholder can explain why our politics has become a winner-take-all bloodsport where compromise equals betrayal.  After all, if my political enemies are merely marinating for a long roast, why should I treat them with any respect?

How did we get to a point where this kind of extremism is normal?  The story goes back more than twenty years to a time when people who share this worldview recognized the neglected potential of the grassroots.  Fundamentalists, particularly in the South, began targeting downballot races and local precinct leadership in the eighties.  Precinct chairmen don’t seem like power players, but when you dominate the precincts you dominate the Party.

Since the ‘90’s (1994 in particular) local GOP politics in the South has been dominated by religious fundamentalists and Houston is a fine example.  Until ”Scary” Gary Polland stepped down as chairman in 2002, the Party posted on its website a questionnaire for potential candidates with long lists of leading questions on religious affiliation like ‘How often do you attend religious services?’  Party caucuses and major meetings that were once held in schools or county buildings are now held in churches.

Bizarre fundamentalist activists like Terry Lowry and Steven Hotze among others have been quietly allowed to build power until they can influence primary elections and help shape policy.  Tolerated for years as a marginal tool to bolster Party influence, these extremists have learned to wag the dog.

Hotze helped promote the fundamentalist movement’s grassroots strategy, observing back in the 90’s that “the precinct convention is the most critical meeting for you to attend if you want to have an impact on civil government.”  His power slackened a bit after his drunk driving arrest and his problems with the state medical board.  But he hasn’t gone away, sending anti-gay mailers in last year’s Mayoral election and organizing local events for Mike Huckabee’s Presidential campaign.

Lowry has long been accused of a form of political payola, doling out fundamentalist endorsements critical in local downballot Republican primary races while accepting advertisements from those candidates for his “Link Letter” and “donations” to connected charities.  There’s no online link to the Link Letter because it’s kept off the Internet.  Lowry has been pressing for a strict rule to disqualify any potential precinct chairmen who would disagree with fundamentalist positions on abortion or gay rights in particular.  He has claimed on his Facebook site that “the Devil” is trying to divide the local GOP.

In the wake of a disastrous Republican decade, there is a growing realization inside the GOP that these cartoon characters are wielding actual power. These characters in Houston are not unique.  You’ll find versions of them influencing Republican policy and tactics all over the country.  If they aren’t confronted we risk becoming a political party centered on an extreme interpretation of political Christianity rather than the party of personal liberty and responsible government.

On April 13^th the Harris County Republican Party will choose a chairman in a runoff election.  It sounds like a parochial, administrative matter and turnout is likely to reflect that belief.  But this is one of the most influential political positions in the state.

Republicans in Harris County have an opportunity to put in place reasonable leadership that respects the proper role of religion in personal and public life while also preserving other vital values.  Party activists are supposed to be committed, but the extremism has gone too far.  Harris County Republicans have a chance to take one more quiet, but significant step in rolling back a movement that has damaged both religion and politics in our generation.  Let’s hope they use this opportunity to make the Party stronger.

I really used to believe that if you present someone with the facts, they would be persuaded to see another person’s viewpoint as valid. 

Case in point: I used to believe that if I showed my liberal friends that one can be a gay Republican and be out and proud and also show that there are a number of conservatives out there that don’t have an issue with gays, they would see gay and gay-friendly Republicans as their allies in the fight for gay eqaulity.

How silly of me to believe this.

What I’ve come to find out over time is that no matter how hard one tries, it makes no difference.  Gay Republicans are still viewed as tragic figures or anomalies, no minds are changed.

I’ve been reminded of that after reading David Link’s post today at Independent Gay Forum.  Link is talking about the recent revelations of California State Senator Roy Ashburn, an anti-gay senator that turns out to be gay.  He uses this post as a way to talk about the sad state of the GOP and how they oppress gays and lesbians.  I don’t have an argument with that, but then he makes this statement:

That is what his party not only demands of its followers, but seems to prefer – the willing (if not mandated) suspension of disbelief.  No GOP candidates can ever be (openly) homosexual.

The confines of that small parenthetical contain the entire culture war over gay rights.  Of course some GOP candidates and elected officials are homosexual.  Of course GOP voters are, as well.  But that observable and unavoidable fact can’t be honestly and straightforwardly talked about in the party.  Log Cabin and now GOProud keep trying, while the party leaders and voters put their fingers in their ears and shout “Lalalalala!” as loud as they can.

While there is some truth to all of this, he seems to ignore some changes that have been made. He didn’t read a Christian Science Monitor article that talks about the openly gay Republican in Virginia that is running against a Democrat, or the openly gay Republican running for Lt. Governor in Massachusetts. He forgets the growing list of conservatives who are in favor of same sex marriage. He discounts groups like Log Cabin Republicans and GOProud, that work and support gay and gay friendly candidates and have made a difference in changing the minds of many a Republican.

Link then goes on to heap praise on the Democrats, showing how open-minded they are.  Yea.  The thing is, the reason the Democrats are where they are is because of political action.  Gay Democrats got active and worked to change hearts and minds.  Gay Republicans are taking a page from that book and are working to change hearts and minds in the GOP as well.  It’s a long road, but I see more progress than Link does.

In the end, all that a gay or gay-friendly Republican can do is keep to keep plugging away, working for social change and ignoring the David Links of the world who will never see the changes taking place.

Washington (CNN):

Mitt Romney has a message to Tea Party candidates nationwide: If you lose your
Republican primary bids, stay on the sidelines.
The former Massachusetts
governor on Monday warned the grassroots movement not to mount third party
efforts in general elections, which he said would siphon votes from Republican
nominees.

“If there is a conservative candidate that runs in the general
election, then obviously, divide and fail is the result,” Romney said in an
interview with the conservative Web site Newsmax. “Hopefully Tea Party
candidates will run in respective primaries and they will either win or lose.
And if they win, they will go into the general. If they lose, they won’t, and
they will get behind the more conservative of the two finalists.”

Romney explained that “dividing our conservative effort in the general elections” would “basically hand the country to Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and that would be very sad indeed.”
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin made similar remarks last month in a speech sponsored by the Arkansas Republican Party. “Now the smart thing will be for independents who are such a part of this Tea Party movement to, I guess, kind of start picking a party,” she said, adding that the GOP would be the most natural fit for such activists.
Romney had kind words for the Tea Party movement. “I’m really pleased that the silent majority is silent no longer,” he said, predicting that the movement “will have have an impact on this election.”
“Not all the Tea Partiers are Republicans, not all of them vote for Republicans, but I think most of them will,” he said.

Continuing with the Tea Party series, I thought what Romney said was quite appropriate. Earlier, I said that the GOP could use the Tea Party, and in fact needs the Tea Party, because the Tea Party has engaged the “silent majority” to be silent no longer. Then, in the second part of the series, I showed that while the GOP needs the Tea Party, it also needs to make sure to silence and repudiate the “crazy parts” and the fringe of the tea party in order to make sure that the whole is not defined by the rotten few.

Here, I think what Romney says is that while the GOP needs the Tea Party, the Tea Party also needs the GOP. It may be the more conservative part of the Republican Party, but it is undeniably part of the Republican Party. A limb cannot survive without the body, but the body can survive without a limb.

If the Tea Party were to put more conservative candidates in the primaries, that would be great. Let the voters decide. But if the Republican voters choose a more progressive or moderate candidate, like Brown, then the Tea Party needs to honor that choice and try elsewhere. To try and then push someone as a third, more conservative party, would only mean that both the conservative and the republican candidate would split votes, and what would happen? I think Romney said it best: It would “…hand the country to Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and that would be very sad indeed.”

Eleven Republican incumbents had Tea Party challengers in the recent elections in Texas.

Ten of the eleven Tea Party challengers went down to defeat. Incumbent Republican State Rep. Tommy Merritt lost to Tea Party challenger David Simpson, running as a Republican.

James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas, commented after analyzing Tea Party candidates and voting results: “there was a lot more flash than bang.”

Most Tea Party candidates were soundly defeated with incumbents garnering 80% of the votes in most cases.

The highest level of votes received was 19% by Debra Medina in her bid as the Republican candidate for governor.

Rep. Kay Granger, a Fort Worth Republican and seven-term incumbent, received 70 percent even though Tea Partyers specifically targeted her as being a probable win for them. Granger got 70 percent of the vote despite having two opponents.

Texas 2010 primary elections had a record turnout with 1.4 million Republicans casting votes, almost double that of 2008.

Bill4DogCatcher sez: There were some local races where Tea Partyers won. Ultimately local candidates have to discuss local issues. How you fill potholes and pay for it requires some level of specificity. Tea Partyers either have answers or they don’t. Some did.

However, raging against Washington when you really don’t have a plan of your own obviously doesn’t sell well. Rage may get lots of attention in front of cameras at town hall meetings but we don’t want to elect angry people. If ultraconservative Texas is any indication, Americans continue to prefer the devil it already has rather than vote for rage and a set of fuzzy political beliefs that do not seem to point to any definable sense of what it all means as public policy.

Sources:

• McClatchy, “Texas primary shows Tea Party has a weak brew“, http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/03/03/89777/commentary-texas-primary-shows.html
• CNN: “Tea Party changes tone, but not outcome of Texas primary“, http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/05/texas.tea.party/index.html
• TaxDayTeaParty.com: “Tea Party Factors Playing Into the Texas Primary“, http://taxdayteaparty.com/2010/03/tea-party-factors-playing-into-the-texas-primary/
• Chron | Houston & Texas News: “Lackluster showing puts damper on Tea Party“, http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6896043.html

I read an interesting op-ed piece today, by Leonard Pitts Jr., entitled Crazy and Incoherent. It was printed in the Oregonian, and you can read the entire article here.

Pitts talks about the Tea Parties and many of the extremists found within its ranks. He gives a surprising quote, by Editor in Chief Erick Erickson of RedState, a big name conservative blog:

“At some point, you have to use the word ‘crazy.’”
…
Erickson was recently quoted on Politico in a report about how he and other
conservatives are attempting to distance their ideology and the Republican Party
from the paranoid theorizing and loud, incoherent screaming that have recently
passed for discourse on the political right. And of course, the darkly comic
thing about it is that, less than a year ago, some conservatives were exulting
over the tea parties, believing they brought needed energy to a movement
demoralized by its 2008 shellacking at the polls. “The Republican comeback has
begun,” declared GOP chief Michael Steele.

What a difference a year makes. Or not.

Some of us after all, have argued all along that the tea parties were about
as “conservative” — insofar as that term has traditionally been understood –
as ladies night in a Castro Street bar. Indeed, some of us made the same point
about George W. Bush, the putatively conservative president who nevertheless
presided over an expansion of the federal government and of a federal
entitlement program (Medicare), a costly war of choice in Iraq founded on a
shifting rationale, and financial mismanagement that turned surplus into deficit
seemingly overnight. For at least the last decade, then, conservatism has not seemed particularly conservative — a
disconnect many of the ideology’s adherents managed to ignore so long as it was
useful to do so, i.e., so long as it played well at the ballot box. “Just win,
baby” was their mantra; intellectual honesty, their casualty…

This, I believe, is completely on the nose. The reason Republicans lost so badly in 2008 wasn’t because the Democrats and liberals are great—far from the truth, as we have clearly seen with our current administration and Democrat majority. Washington is still broken. No, Republicans didn’t lose due to their competition; Republicans lost because of themselves. One thing Americans hate, hate, is hypocrisy. And when Republicans talk about conservativism, less government, fiscal responsibility, and then use their majority to do the opposite, America reacts. And that is why we currently have a Democratically controlled, well, everything.

Pitts continues on why the Tea Parties really haven’t accomplished a lot in the last year:

…the tea party movement [was found] to be amorphous and largely without
an organizing principle other than its anger toward government and fear of a
supposedly imminent dictatorship. Beyond that, partiers are an unwieldy amalgam
of tax haters, global warming holdouts, illegal-immigration protesters,
secessionists, gun rights advocates, white supremacists, militia types and
conspiracy theorists, all banging their gongs at the same time. Like the liberal
noisemakers who follow the World Trade Organization around, their lack of
message discipline renders them — that word, yet again — incoherent. Like
them, they have yet to figure out that to protest everything is to
protest nothing.

Make no mistake: every movement or marginalized people has its fringe
extremists who threaten to define the whole. Thus, moderate American Muslims are
periodically required to rebuke Islamic terrorists, environmentalists are
obligated to rebuff eco-terrorists, and moderate African-Americans are expected
to reprove Louis Farrakhan.

But conservatives, outside of a few integrity-driven souls over the years,
have not rushed to repudiate the crazies among them, even as the crazies have
grown crazier and threatened to engulf the whole.

And here he is right. We need to continue to repudiate, as Erick Erickson has done, the crazier parts. Otherwise, the fringe of the tea party will take over the tea party, and the tea party will, in turn, define the Republican Party. And that would be disastrous for the party, not to mention for the entire country.

The Honorable Senator from Kentucky has been increasingly irritable, erratic, and downright ornery in recent years.  He has alienated colleagues and nearly lost his seat to a Democrat.  Now he has sealed his “cantankerous old codger” credentials with a stunt that was costing thousands of out of work Americans their unemployment benefits.

Until yesterday, Bunning was using one of those arcane Senatorial prerogatives to halt progress of a funding bill for that includes numerous projects including money for unemployment.  His complaint was that the bill should not move forward until the Senate finds funding to cover its cost.

In and of itself this is not such an unreasonable demand.  What’s strange and pointlessly spiteful about it is that about a quarter of everything Congress spends right now has no revenue behind it and Bunning has played an enthusiastic role in getting us into this mess.  He could have refused to designate any of his earmarks until Congress found funding for them, but that would have severely impacted Bunning’s campaign contributors.  We don’t want to let idealism get out of hand.

Beyond the realization that one guy with a loose grip on reality can hold up Senate business, there is a cold lesson in this experience if we choose to see it.  Bunning is, accidentally I’m sure, playing out for us in microcosm an ambush we have set for ourselves.  We are facing a scenario in the medium-term future, perhaps as few as eight to ten years out, when world financial markets will “pull a Bunning” on us.  When this happens, it won’t affect one government program, but all of them.  We could potentially lose the ability to deliver basic services for brief periods.  This is an opportunity to learn.

These days we aren’t just borrowing “a lot.”  We are borrowing far more money than we can find lenders for.  Our total debt is now almost as high as a full year’s complete economic output for the entire country.  So how have we avoided a collapse in government funding?  We are covering this frightening scenario by having our own Treasury and Federal Reserve purchase the debt that can’t be auctioned in the marketplace.  Under normal conditions this couldn’t be sustained because it would trigger high levels of inflation.  But (again, simplifying), the scale of the recent economic collapse was so vast that even now deflation remains a greater concern than inflation.

So what happens to debt finance when we have finally worked our way through the effects of the housing bubble and the financial industry collapse?  The honest answer is no one really knows.  But you can be pretty certain that we won’t be able to continue to print money to cover our debt.  If we have not found a way to stop running massive annual deficits we face a terrible dilemma -  either run a risk of hyperinflation or run out of money, perhaps rather suddenly.  At that point, the kind of pain Jim Bunning is causing will look like a joke.  Depending on how unprepared we are for the problem, we may not have an opportunity to prioritize whatever available funding there is.  Bills may not be paid based on which day or month they come due, be they military, medical, educational, etc.

This is a scenario other countries, like Argentina and Malaysia have experienced recently with great human suffering.  But if we let it happen to us the pain will reverberate around the planet.  The collapse of Argentina’s currency didn’t destroy the machinery of the global commodities markets and international finance. The collapse of the dollar would have broad global impacts that are difficult to predict.  That makes it likely the world will work to keep it from happening, but ultimately we are in the drivers’ seat.  That’s why you hear so much talk these days about countries and international entities wanting to find an alternative to the dollar as a reserve currency.

Taming our spending problems will be painful and unpopular.  It remains unclear whether we have the will, even within the GOP, to do it.  Over the previous four Administrations, it was Republican Presidents that more than quadrupled our debt to GDP ratio while Clinton actually produced a surplus.  Crazy ‘Ole Uncle Jim is showing us a vision of our future.  It is a future we can avoid if we choose.

Why must it cost $75-150 for a five-minute consultation with a doctor?

Why can’t I email my doctor and get a reply the way I do with my accountant, attorney, financial planner, pastor, kids’ teachers, etc?

Does it really take a professional who scored a 1350 on her SAT’s, finished top of her class at UT, then completed seven years of expensive post graduate education and residency to determine whether my kid has an ear infection?

Why can’t I know what a test, procedure, or visit will cost and a) compare that cost among providers, and/or b) make some judgment about which care makes sense based on what it will cost and what I need?

If our restaurants and grocery stores had no prices listed and you only got a coded bill weeks later partially covered by someone else, do you think you spending would be efficient?  Would we as a society have serious problems with the cost of food?

Those who complain about a government takeover of healthcare should check their facts.  We already enjoy all the frustration, bureaucracy, and obstacles to innovation of a government-run health system without the benefits.  We live under government-run healthcare, we just pay a fortune for it and don’t cover everyone.

The challenge of making affordable insurance coverage available to all Americans is actually a just one component of our healthcare problems.  Our process for delivering and paying for healthcare was cobbled together about eighty years ago and has been slow to adapt to changes in our society.  It is a system that has become spectacularly rigid, mostly hidden from view, influenced by innumerable separate state, federal, local, corporate, and professional bureaucracies and presided over by none of them.

This doesn’t mean that pure deregulation will work.  Medicine does not and never will function as a truly efficient market.  After falling off a ladder, you are not going to shop ambulance companies for the provider best suited to your particular needs.  Consumer choice is limited by the specialized knowledge required, the vulnerability of the patient, and difficulties in comparing value.  Regulation of the healthcare industry can’t be eliminated, but it needs to be loosened and updated.

Obama’s plan takes the healthcare industry in the wrong direction.  Instead of bringing simplification, it adds layers of new bureaucracy.  It does nothing to strip back the generations of largely irrelevant regulation; building instead a concrete monster on top of the muddle.  It addresses cost by moving toward rationing instead of opening the field for greater efficiencies and better practices.

As Republicans we should understand this one fact – You will never choose healthcare the way you pick which brand of peanut butter to buy.  And some more effective system will have to be put in place to address the needs of the less fortunate.  That system will cost money in the form of taxes.  Have a drink.  Say a prayer. Whatever it takes.  Make peace with it.

However, simply creating the largest government entitlement in history (largest in anyone’s history, not just America’s) on a party line vote with no fundamental restructuring will be a recipe for disaster.

There may not be a more technically complex problem we have ever been asked to solve as a nation.  As Obama’s plan falls apart, Republicans are positioned to propose a conservative process that could bring meaningful improvements and set the stage for wider reforms.  Before we can do that, we have to get over our favorite solution for everything, better than aspirin – “how about a tax cut/credit?”

First step toward a solution?  Empower states to come up with their own solutions.  Give them greater regulatory freedom over existing programs like Medicare/caid.  Offer greater funding from the federal government for state programs that extend coverage significantly.  I’m not saying this for the frequent Republican reason – toss a problem we don’t care about to the states so it can disappear from the agenda.  I say it for these reasons:

- States already have far more experience, breadth of authority, and insight into the healthcare system.  States regulate medical professionals, administer Medicare and Medicaid, along with their own programs.  Any structural changes in the way we administer healthcare would almost have to originate at the state level in order to make sense.  Imagine for example of version of Obama’s plan that was made available for states to adopt or not.

- States have more freedom than the federal government to innovate.  They are smaller, more accountable, and in a worst case, have the larger federal government to fall back on for assistance if their efforts fail.  Who do the feds fall back on…?

- There are fifty states and only one federal government.  Again, more opportunity for ideas to emerge.

Congress could help further by clearing obstacles that limit insurance company competition at the state level.

We are not Canada. We are not France.  We could adopt their healthcare legislation down to the last silent “g” and not see the same results.  The best approach to making quality healthcare available to everyone will take into account our size, our existing systems, our politics, and our values.  There is an opportunity here for the GOP to take a leadership role on an issue we have given little attention.  We need to have the maturity and courage to seize it and act.

Mitt Romney is currently making the book tour rounds promoting his new tome  No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, while last week at CPAC John Bolton, a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute  and a member of numerous presidential administrations, said of Obama, “He is the first post-American president.” According to Bolton Obama views America’s superpower status as ending, or ended.  He claims Obama is fine letting America be a nation among the nations, not exceptional, certainly not better.

In light of the recent attention on American Exceptionalism I thought it would be appropriate to repost and article I wrote at The Moderate Republican almost exactly a year ago,:

“The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.”-Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville, French political thinker and historian of the 19th century best known for his Democracy in America, felt that the United States held a special place among nations. He said this over 150 years ago when the nation was only 50 years old. This idea gradually took hold and came to be know as American Exceptionalism. This is currently defined as the theory that the United States occupies a special niche among developed nations in terms of its national credo, historical evolution, strong democratic and religious institutions and unique origins. However, recent events have lead me to question whether the concept still resonates in the 21st century. If it does not then perhaps it is time to repair some faults.

“No natural boundary seems to be set to the efforts of man; and what is not yet done is only what he has not yet attempted to do.” – Tocqueville

Are we still a nation of unbridled invention? What exactly is our national credo as we enter this new era in American history? What truths do we hold to be central to who we are as Americans? Once upon a time those truths were of Emersonian self reliance, frontier-style entrepreneurialism , and fierce independence. Do these still hold true in a time when we are conforming to societal norms as presented by banal TV sitcoms, regularly looking to the government for not just a hand-up but a hand-out, and seem to be bowing more and more to pressures from the international community when it comes to our foreign policy?

“Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie is not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed? And what can be done with a people who are their own masters if they are not submissive to the Deity?” – Tocqueville

We are still, of course, the world’s preeminent democracy, however, our religious character, which stood as the foundation of our society, has been called into question. Just last week the American Religious Identification Survey came out with data that showed since 1990, the percentage of Americans claiming no religion has nearly doubled, growing to 15% last year. America was not founded as a country of any particular religion, however, we have always held that basic religious principles were what held our democracy together. If we go the way of most of the European continent and become essentially non religious will our democracy hold?

Over at The America, Charles Murray has a nice piece on how America must decide exactly what it wants to be in the 21st century.

“The advent of the Obama administration brings this question before the nation: Do we want the United States to be like Europe? President Obama and his leading intellectual heroes are the American equivalent of Europe’s social democrats. There’s nothing sinister about that. They share an intellectually respectable view that Europe’s regulatory and social welfare systems are more progressive than America’s and advocate reforms that would make the American system more like the European system. It is the elites who are increasingly separated from the America over which they have so much influence. That is not the America that Tocqueville saw. It is not an America that can remain America.”

What we are faced with today is more than a financial crisis, more than a depressed economy, even more than a bloated federal government. We are faced with a cultural crisis, and if we do not act soon we could see the America of our fathers and grandfathers disappear within our generation.

“When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.”- Tocqueville

If you want to know why conservatism is viewed as a joke by some people, one only has to look at bloggers like Erick Erikson of Red State. In response to a recent column by David Frum, where Frum talked about how Congress and Washington as a whole are getting little done in the way of legislation, Erikson had this to say:

Maybe, just maybe there is a different reason Congress has done little since the seventies. Maybe, just maybe it could be because conservatives largely took over in the 80’s through Republican controlled White Houses or Congresses and conservatives tend to think we don’t need sweeping legislation to solve all the ills of the American people.

Isn’t this the quintessential vanity piece of liberal drivel? Those elites back in the 50s to the 70s could get great things done because they didn’t have to interact with the people. But once they were forced to interact with those C-SPAN cameras, they couldn’t solve all the problems the American people never knew they had.

To which David Frum responds:

If it were possible for two paragraphs to sum up everything that is wrong with the American conservative movement, these are them.

The total indifference to policy and governance – the glib equation of ideological activists with “the people” – the assumption that conservatives just needed to “take over” and then all problems would spontaneously disappear …. it’s all on display.

The suggestion that conservatives don’t need to legislate – or anyway don’t need to legislate anything much – is ignorant of history, ignorant of policy, ignorant of government.

To their critics, the deregulation of oil and gas in the 1970s was “sweeping.” Ditto the deregulation of air, trucking and rail. Ditto the Reagan tax cuts. Ditto welfare reform.

The problems ahead for conservatives will require even bigger action still.

Do you want to balance the budget? You can’t do it without curbing the growth of Medicare and Medicaid, and that will take major reforms in both programs.

How about a shift from unskilled to more skilled immigration? Not a small project.

Concerned to protect the environment while enhancing U.S. energy security? That too will require legislation that some would call sweeping.

My beef with Erickson and his ilk is that they have no interest in governing, in trying to solve national problems with conservative ideas. No, instead, they are interested in frontin’ , in striking a pose and yelling about the evils of big government, all the while doing nothing to actually shrink government. As Jonathan Rauch has said, this is all about George Wallace-style cultural resentment against the “elites” and nothing more. It might win a few elections here and there, but when things go bad, people want their government to do something, not just spout angry rhetoric.

Do I want some kind of Euro-style big government? No. I want a smaller goverment, but I also want it to be efficient. If I want it to take on entitlement reform or really deal with the deficit, then I want it to be competent and just.

Which reminds me: two of those sweeping laws that the “elites” passed in the 1960s were the Voting and Civil Rights Acts. The Voting Rights Act allowed my relatives in the American South to vote without being harrassed or subject to poll taxes and the like. The Civil Rights Act allows me to purchase a home or get a job without being discriminated against. Are these laws that Erickson would rather not have Congress do, because they are “big government?”

Instead of making “limited government” no more than a battle cry, we should be engaged in seeking ways for government to be efficient and limited in its influence.

But such an approach would require thinking, something very few conservatives seem interested in doing these days.

As a moderate I generally am in favor of Independents entering politics. As a center-right nation, most Independents tend to slant right (see Joe Lieberman and Lincoln Chafee). While these sorts of candidates generally infuriate the party the are most closely aligned with, I tend to see them as free to make more principled decisions without having to play to the base. And at the end of the day I am just as happy with an Independent who organizes with the Republicans as I am a down the line conservative. There will never be a shortage of partisans, so some independent thought mixed in has to be good for debate- as long as it doesn’t get in the way of leadership.

All that said, I am not sure what to make of Florida’s Charlie Crist.  From The Hill

Either Charlie Crist realizes he can’t escape the stimulus, or he’s leaning toward an independent run for Senate.
Crist is saying some curious things for a man in the midst of a conservative primary challenge.
An independent run is easily the most tempting scenario for political junkies, and polls show Crist would stand a better chance of winning in a three-way race with Marco Rubio and Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.) than he would of winning the GOP primary. He’s got to know that he will probably never win the presidency as a Republican, so now is as good a time as any to reevaluate.

He is sounding more and more independent lately, but Rubio is a solid conservative candidate that I would welcome in the Senate as well. If Crist makes the jump it could be an interesting race. If he is successful, would Bayh entertain and independent bid for the White House? Just asking.

Crossposted at The Moderate Republican.