There are several Republican ideas in the bill. It allows Americans to buy health insurance across state lines. It increases the bargaining power of small businesses by allowing them to pool together — much like large corporations or labor unions — to bargain for a better insurance rate. It gives states the flexibility to come up with an alternate health care plan, and it gives them resources to reform our tort system by developing new ways to deal with medical malpractice.

He’s correct that these are Republican ideas. However from what I’ve gathered, the GOP was never asked for their imput on the bill. The ideas were added in believing that it would attract a few moderate Republicans.

I’ve faulted the GOP for not being serious in the current debate on health care. That said, the Democrats were never that serious about bipartisanship. They added a few bones and hoped a few moderates would take the bait.

While I appreciate LaHood’s willingness to “get things done,” bipartisanship has to be about treating other with respect and not cynicism.

Email this post

Spread the Word:

Perhaps a metaphor would be useful.  In the fall of 2004 I moved my family from Houston to the Chicago-area.  Never mind for a moment what this says about my sanity or morals.  It happened.  Let’s all learn from it.  One of my earliest introductions to Yankee life came in the form of a charming orange flier delivered to our door by the town council.  It was printed front and back in small type with a laundry list of laws governing the disposal of our leaves.

This is a topic I had never given much thought.  Growing up in Beaumont we just burned them in the backyard.  The greasy odor of oak and pine smoke clinging to the ground under the cool, humid air is what fall always smelled like.

Living in Houston we piled them into the garden where they seemed to break down into mulch before we could finish raking them up.  If there were any formal ordinances about what we could do with our leaves, or with just about anything else from discarded car batteries to old jugs of Roundup, I never knew what they were.  Viva Houston, viva Libertad

The town’s little orange flier seemed uptight and faintly oppressive.  Until the leaves came down.

I had a great time with the kids making piles under the big maple.  Then we raked them into the beds around the bushes.  Done.  Take that, rule-obsessed Yankees.  When the frost hit them they dried up like parchment.  They seemed to rise and hover in the crisp air like paper embers.  With few fences in any of the yards, we found ourselves a couple of days later apologizing to our new neighbor three doors down, Mrs. Chicago-alski, while we corralled our leaves from her yard and hauled them back.

The town really won’t pick them up in plastic bags.  They were actually serious about that.  Apparently hefty bags don’t mulch well.  They want you to buy these big paper bags which are relatively costly, don’t seem to hold much, are hard to stand up, but are environmentally friendly.  And it turns out that, like the flier warned, if you just dump the leaves in your garbage cans for pickup they are in fact likely to freeze into a wad at the bottom and remain with you after the taillights of the garbage truck have disappeared around the corner.

In my first Yankee year this was just one of a thousand little brushes with what my Southern mind saw as a police state, but now seem like the necessary compromises required to maintain civility in urban life.  My little town consists of 43,000 people crammed into a space considerably smaller than Bush Airport.  In this dense warren its not safe for me to burn my leaves in the backyard and the cloying smoke would not be appreciated by my neighbors with their windows open to capture the cool night air.

But without the rules, I might have done it anyway.

I was raised on the ethic of a Southern man virtually sovereign under God on his own patch of soil.  That model makes perfect sense in Thomas Jefferson’s rural vision of the republic.  It makes no sense under Alexander Hamilton’s vision of an urban, capitalist nation.  To live in an urban environment we have to learn to live together with some rules.

These days Republicans are throwing around words like “collectivist” and “communist” to describe our concerns with Obama, but they sound silly even on our own tongues.  Obama is not a communist and my little orange flier was not oppression.  Southerners are not struggling against socialism.  They are struggling to come to terms with the demands of modern, global capitalism.

Like a lost memory we are feeling the same impulse that animated our Confederate ancestors who mistakenly railed against “wage slavery” and “Yankee Industrialists.”  They feared that capitalism would destroy their values and undermine their rural way of life.  They failed to recognize the tremendous potential of capitalism to not only make us more prosperous, but to open our world to more personal liberty.  They were wrong then with gruesome consequences.  We are wrong now and marching in their footsteps.

There are bright days ahead when we as Republicans put down our pitchforks and give up the search for the village monster.  There are bright days ahead learn to adapt Republican ideas to traditionally Democratic domains, when we learn to apply conservative solutions to problems of environmental protection, urban schools, healthcare, and developing new sources of energy.

And by the way, I found a way to get rid of my leaves without breaking the rules and without buying all those ridiculous bags, but that’s another story.  Junior was right, a country boy can survive, even in the big city.

Email this post

Spread the Word:

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.

Email this post

Spread the Word:

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?

Email this post

Spread the Word:

Email this post

Spread the Word:

Early on, I was also taken in by a lot of the media hype and found many of my preconceived notions being challenged. I’ve been spending my time this year working on a Congressional campaign which keeps me on the road quite a bit with my candidate, hitting all of the usual stops as well as some ventures into unknown territory. Many of these events are the same old song and dance. I don’t wish to put too cynical of a face on things, but there are plenty of groups out there where you know in advance which points you need to hit. The pro-life groups want to know you’ve checked the right box on your application. Gun owners and sportsmen clubs need to see that you’re up to date on the Heller decision. But when we started receiving invitations to address some tea party meetings I got nervous.

My immediate reaction was to insist that we didn’t send out any invitations to the press. I’d seen all of the provocative video clips from MSNBC and CNN, along with the blaring headlines at Huffington Post. My mind filled with images of pitchfork wielding townsmen carrying around signs with nooses, swastikas and allegations of secret communist plots. “Good Lord!” I thought. “This election is going to be hard enough. The last thing I need is a picture showing up in our local paper of my candidate hanging around with a bunch of Klansmen.”

I’ve now met with more than a dozen groups in both Upstate New York and Pennsylvania, and my suspicions have been almost unanimously confounded rather than confirmed. We’ve been greeted by surprisingly large groups of citizens who were polite and obviously very well informed on the issues of the day which concern them. The tone has been far more energized and excited than hysterical. And any expectations of a friendly, conservative base reception were quickly dismissed. They asked questions – very tough questions in many cases – and listened patiently to the answers.

It’s another reminder that the Tea Party movement is a lot harder to pigeonhole than people think.

Email this post

Spread the Word:

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.

Email this post

Spread the Word:

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.

Email this post

Spread the Word:

But Eric Cohen’s essay on Irving Kristol reminds us that neoconservatism had a noble beginning and might have a useful future in the GOP.

Email this post

Spread the Word:

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.

Email this post

Spread the Word:

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.

Email this post

Spread the Word:

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.”

Email this post

Spread the Word: