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Kentucky’s Lesson for Republicans
As I write this, the Democratic senatorial candidate running against Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, Allison Lundergan Grimes, is running ads differentiating herself from Obama.
She is seen firing a gun, and declaring “I am not Barack Obama.” Democrats have not and will not attack her for this, as they assume it is largely an insincere electoral tactic to win an election in a conservative state, and that once ensconced in the Senate she will be a loyal Democratic vote on most issues.
Contrast this to the unreasonable conservative reaction to similar behavior by politicians like Chris Christie. Running for re-election in a very liberal state, he distances himself from the House Republican majority to establish his moderate bona fides, and all too many Republicans are ready to condemn him as a traitor. Democrats stick together, which helps them win, while Republicans are damned unless they are 100% pure in their behavior. Our obsession with purity tests is needlessly dividing our party.
I think our party could take a lesson from this.
Published in Elections, General
Could you expand on the nature of the change? Do you believe that it would result in Susan Collins and Mark Kirk would becoming much more conservative?
Do you believe that it would mean that the next time Cuccinelli or his equivalent won a primary, the establishment conservatives who hear that they are targeted for destruction are more likely to support them with massive donations and the volunteering of time, and thus that they are likely to be elected?
Do you think that encouraging intra-party conflict, losing the Senate’s best fundraiser for other Republicans, and ensuring that other senators with relatively safe seats spent their time focused on fundraising and protecting their seats rather than supporting other Republicans would be likely to get more Republicans elected? Perhaps you think that with a minority position in the Senate and without the White House we’re likely to get some radical conservative laws passed?
Speaking of, perhaps you think that if we have massive internal conflict, we’re likely to be able to retake the Presidency? That the more burned earth policies we can engage in in civil conflict, the stronger we’ll be at facing those outside?
Seriously, don’t just assert that the impact of your desired outcome would be the opposite of all the intuitive impacts, explain the mechanism by which they’d be arrived at.
Having sold cars and fought wars, I’ll keep my own counsel about how hard to fight, and who my enemy is. What reward did the Tea Party of 2010 enjoy for handing victory to the GOP? The GOP has prevented a recurrence of the same, and By God it will now be different.
James, you’re full of questions. Ponder them in your own time. Your gradualist plan is serial failure. We’re doing something different.
Grimes lies about taking the conservative position on issues. For there to be analogy, Christie would have to be lying when taking a leftist position on issues. Thus, being pro-life is not one of his leftist positions. That’s one of his conservative positions.
Whatever his (or any other “moderate Republican’s” or RINO’s) leftist positions are, he’s not lying about them. Whatever a “moderate Democrat’s” ostensible conservative positions are, they are lies.
It’s another incongruity that you are asserting that Christie takes a conservative position on abortion which is overwhelmingly the main issue conservatives are told to moderate on by their RINO betters.
Or are you saying that Christie, like Grimes, is lying about being conservative?
I don’t think anyone is planning magical victories, but I’m not sure where your twenty years figure comes from. You’ve talked before about the Ryan Plan not balancing in ten years, and made the claim that we don’t have ten years.
I think that if we get the entitlement reform that Congressional Republicans and most plausible Republican Presidential candidates support, and we gain enough seats in Congress to stop having to choose between cutting domestic spending and increasing military spending, we’ll still have fiscal work to do, but we won’t be in a crisis. There are other fronts, of course, some of which (school choice, abortion, labor, etc.) we’re winning. There are some that we’re trading victories on (immigration, guns), and some that we’re losing (SSM, minimum wage). What would be the catastrophic consequences of implementing the Ryan Plan (plus more Social Security reform) and winning more of the other battles?
A bunch of Tea Party politicians like Rand Paul, Scott Walker, and Mike Lee were elected? This helped to result in spending being cut. Obviously the election of Scott Brown mean that Obama couldn’t pass massive numbers of laws through a filibuster proof Congress. More Tea Party politicians were elected in 2012, including Ted Cruz and Scott Walker again. This cycle it looks like we may get another raft of Tea Party conservatives elected like Ben Sasse, Tom Cotton, Joni Ernst, and Scott Walker again. Obviously, that outcome depends on them getting support from people who claim to care about this. The Republican establishment is not only not preventing them from succeeding, but has worked hard to support them.
If you want people to be interested in your opinions, support those who agree with them. There are close elections with keen conservatives ready to make a difference. Focusing on a perverse understanding of McConnell, who is not in a close election, instead of on what you can do to make America a better place, seems unlikely to result in your making a positive difference.
Real lessons Republican candidates need to learn:
1. Run like you actually want to win the election (McConnell seems to be doing that. Oberweiss here in Illinois is not as far as I can tell).
2. Take care of the basic blocking and tackling. The pols and their staff are all over us to make phone calls. Have a decent message to leave on voice mail. The first one was a scratchy, meandering, 60 second long blob of platitudes, the next didn’t even mention the candidate’s names.
3. Run on issues, it makes it so much more interesting for the voters. The “offend nobody” prevent defense most Republicans hereabouts are running on is a sure loser.
So you’re voting for die?
The “offend nobody except the Republican base” prevent defense is even worse.
Since when have we really had that choice?
The Senate’s best fundraiser was very helpful in Mississippi helping to fund attacks calling conservatives racists, during a Republican Primary. A Republican was going to win the Republican Primary. Clearly a good use of that fundraising ability. Rather than raising money to attack Democrat candidates lets raise money to attack other Republican candidates.
McConnell gave one speech on behalf of Cochran, at a point when Cochran wasn’t behaving badly. In other cycles, McConnell has overwhelmingly focused his fundraising on fighting Democrats. This cycle he had to focus more on his own race, thanks to a well funded and relentlessly negative primary challenge from a guy who I believe still hasn’t endorsed the winner. It looks like he’s pulled it off, but being Majority Leader while fighting a difficult race doesn’t leave you much time.
The speech for Cochran was part of that Majority Leader role, incidentally. Mitch’s big success has been maintaining unity, such that Obama and Reid haven’t generally been able to peal off small numbers of Republican votes to get their bills passed. That means that he has to work to keep the RINOs supporting conservative policies, and small favors are part of how he does that. Giving a single speech is a pretty low price for keeping the loyalty of a Senator with a history of departing from the party line on a number of issues.
That’s one of the biggest splits in the Congressional party. Mitch McConnell supports the maintenance of the sequester despite the costs to the military. Ryan supports defense spending, despite having to compromise on domestic spending. You can take whichever side of the debate regarding Murray-Ryan, but I don’t believe there was a “cake and eat it” option on the table.
Instead of making stuff up about where McConnell stands and how he only cares about himself and his cronies, why not take a look at his positions?
http://votesmart.org/candidate/evaluations/53298/mitch-mcconnell#.VCCEsRY1ND4
Mitch McConnell is strongly pro-life and has acted as such. Alison Grimes is endorsed by Emily’s List which requires its endorsees to be Pro-Abortion.
I know where I stand and it is for life.
Of course, the very best current example of a moderate Republican who does not cling to moderate tactics is….Chris Christie.
To add to that last comment, I’m not convinced that the GOP is in a constant circular firing squad against its moderates.
Everybody loved (and still loves) Scott Brown, who is about as moderate as they come. Kelly Ayotte seems to get, if not affection, at worst a frustrated shrug from conservatives, despite having almost the exact same positions as the detested John McCain.
I wonder if intra-party animus is really based on politicians’ views, or rather their willingness to attack their own allies.
Replace “very best” with “only”.
There is much dissatisfaction with Brown in NH.
Ayotte is prettier.
James Of England:
I can’t speak to the larger world, but target shooting is a pretty big hobby in the Bluegrass. Horsefarmers will set up a trap shooting range in their empty fields and just blast away all day. Tobacco farmers do it to. Hunting season isn’t exactly year round, here, and pheasant hunting is a popular sport. Even the College Republicans I sponsor have an annual target shooting day where they go to the range and shoot at reactive targets, try out new handguns and long guns -I’ll have to see how they feel about shotguns.
James of England is doing quite an adequate job defending my senior senator. I’ll add that McConnell has been good on free speech and campaign finance, that he’s come talk at my campus about the importance of working within the caucus to find consensus on the floor -and when possible to peal off Democratic votes to get those small wins when big wins aren’t possible. He’s good on life. He works well with Rand Paul (our junior Senator) and his campaign operation may eventually turn this state Republican at the state and local level, too.
Bevin was a one-trick pony.
Sabrdance, I think you’re the first Rico member who has mentioned living in Kentucky. What part of the state do you live in?
For the most part, only the “moderate” Republican politicians go out and tell Dems to vote against the others (SoCons, Libertarians, Tea Party…).
A few SoCons, Libertarians, Tea Party civilians, under disinformation from Dems will be persuaded to vote against moderate Republicans. But they also get tricked to vote against SoCons, Libertarians, and Tea Party types.
SoCons, Libertarians, and Tea Party types are expected to be team players; not the “moderates”.
AMEN! er sorry, I mean amen.
I always assumed it was because it had the fewest trigger warnings — no pun intended — while still delivering the message. Gun phones are less likely to find genteel sport shooting as threatening as something designed for home defense or CCW, etc. At the same time, pro-2A folks are unlikely to say much disparaging.
I don’t understand why more manufacturers don’t do that. Sig’s P238, for instance, is an excellent firearm for women — compact, nice ergonomics, relatively small caliber, and even comes in a number of classy finishes — but there’s not a gal to be found anywhere on their site or Facebook page.
That is the main reason I like Christie, that and because he is fat. He actually looks like a real American unlike poor Mr. Romney. Though I know he doesn’t get much traction here on Ricochet I think he might do a lot better in a primary than the hard core of ricochet think or want.
Not the best hypothetical Apple innovation. Sure it might get middle America, but it can’t be safe bringing one of those to your ear.
Here’s the thing for me:
I fully support the primary process, and support the idea that if someone wants to offer a more conservative alternative to an incumbent, he should do so. That’s partly what the process is for.
Where I think we on the SoCon and Tea Party side go wrong is that when our candidates lose honestly or through possible subterfuge, we seem to get mad, take our ball and go home. We could go a long way in getting cooperation from the Moderates if, after they win a primary, we set our competitive streak aside, endorsed our opponent, and turned our energies against the Democrats.
Yeah, a lot of these so-called Establishment types are hostile towards us. Mitch McConnell has stated they need to crush the Tea Party. But we’ll never get anywhere if we return hostility with hostility.
Again, in Oregon the conservatives frequently took our ball and went home when the game didn’t go our way, and as a result we have one-party rule here – all Progressive Democrat. At least that’s one of the reasons.
Yes, we need to work fast and hard to turn things around politically, socially, and economically. However, the “burn everything” mentality won’t do much for anyone.
This kind of thing will never end until the American people learn the simple fact that it’s almost never possible to “vote for the person, not for the party”. Almost all politicians vote the party platform. Daniel Patrick Moynihan said all kinds of un-liberal things, but he always voted liberal. Always. Almost everyone else is the same. That’s the reason conservatives shouldn’t worry about things like Christie appearing “moderate”.