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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
I’m an old guy. I listen to these comments here, and while I thoroughly side with the essentially libertarian feelings, it seems to me that there are only 2 alternatives here.
If we go with James of England, we have a political fight. To win that, we need a lot more invovlement. The Tea Party, no matter how righteous its stand is, cannot expect to simply walk in and win. It needs to have the levers there that allow the mechanical process of winning to occur. Reading Clout has thoroughly taught me that politics is a WORK business. Doesn’t matter if you like or don’t like the guys. You have to work the system.
The alternative is per TA. But I don’t see HOW you win by losing. This isn’t the Russian steppe and the democrats aren’t the advancing German or French hordes. I have noted Illinois, where the republican party has basically given up. It has no significant representation, and where it does, it hardly much different from the democrats.
But for TA to emerge victorious within his timeframe and schedule, it seems to me that it will take guns. And I am thoroughly NOT in favour of guns. So I am more willing to go with “incremental change” and push via letters – and maybe (even in my old age) some actual campaign help – for change to occur. I read all the history of the Civil War, and know that another would be horrible.
Exactly. The internal discussion on our side will drive the policy if we actually obtain the reigns of power. While the Tea Party/SoCon wing of the Republican coalition may not have the ability to persuade a majority of the country that is not the case if the argument is limited to just our side. The same is true for FiCons like myself and for Libertarians.
@Devereaux- “Reading Clout has thoroughly taught me that politics is a WORK business. Doesn’t matter if you like or don’t like the guys. You have to work the system.”
Agreed. I’ve heard that only 50% of Evangelicals are registered to vote, and of the 50%, only half of them vote. So hard work is in order.
The real question is how should we get involved to change America’s direction.
I hope you don’t consider a few targeted counterstrikes to be “burn everything”. Meekly pressing the same lever time and again as we’re told to is beneath us.
Doesn’t the ad you posted show the exact opposite. Democrats are seemingly not sticking together. The difference is that Democrats expect that they will have to lie to get elected, so the Democrat base understands that Grimes is far more loyal to the Democrat left than her ads show.
The Republican base expects honesty, and ends up with candidates who pretend to be loyal and then vote like leftists once elected.
The Democrat base expects dishonesty, and ends up with candidates who pretend to be disloyal and then vote like leftists once elected.
You see where this is going?
The counter strikes do not appear to me to be targeted. Pat Roberts is the most conservative Senator up for re-election, and was hit hard, possibly fatally. Mitch McConnell has been exceptionally good at getting other Republicans elected, but has had his ability to pass conservative legislation, to fundraise for and otherwise get other Republicans elected, and to block liberal legislation severely hampered, to no purpose that I can see (I can just about wrap my head around the idea that the colossally misguided desire to see him defeated might yield some emotional satisfaction to those calling for his blood, but he’s not going to be defeated; attacks on him merely harm those who forfeit his aid).
No one went for Susan Collins, though, and the efforts to take down Lindsay Graham were laughable. From what I can tell, the choice of targets appears to have been opportunistic rather than strategic, aimed at fundraising rather than political impact. No one could look at the decisions and believe that voting more conservatively in general would make you less likely to get a primary challenge. Governors Kasich and, unforgivably, Sandoval, ran essentially unopposed.
There was one successful attack (Eric Cantor), but that wasn’t “targeted” by Tea Party organizations, since Brat won essentially unaided.
It shows that Democrats will suck it up and keep supporting candidates who distance themselves from the party for political reasons. Even the most moderate Republicans vote pretty consistently with the party; we wouldn’t need many House Republicans to sign a discharge petition and pass amnesty, for instance, but it’s not happening, because they don’t actually vote like liberals.
Democrats understand that and so focus on supporting their candidates. The Democrat who won the Senate primary in Kansas stepped down and endorsed another Democrat more likely to win, for instance. On our side, the guy who lost the primary won’t endorse the guy most likely to win. It’s not only Tea Partiers who behave shamefully in this manner; Bill Bolling was just as bad in Virginia in 2013. Each time a faction decides that if they can’t have a seat, no conservative should have the seat, though, it makes the other faction more likely to respond in kind, a vicious cycle that promises us nothing but pain and socialism.
Do you have examples of moderate Republicans doing that outside Virginia? It seems to me that a pretty high percentage of Libertarian and Tea Party candidates go on to not endorse the winner and to actively seek to damage the party; see the Palin/ Newt/ Paul behaviour at the 2012 convention, for instance.
There are conservatives and moderates who are in close elections this cycle, but you regularly see calls to not support Tillis in order to teach a lesson, but never to not support Ernst or Cotton (the people calling for this will often claim that it is only because people are moderate that they’re struggling, a claim complicated by the numerous races with struggling conservatives). If you look at the chief backers for most successful Tea Party conservatives, you’ll find establishment figures, from Karl Rove to National Review.
So don’t meekly press the lever. Get out there and make a difference. Campaign to get conservatives elected; there are close races across the country crying out for volunteers. Whatever your flavor of conservatism, you can find people who support it. If you want conservatives to take control, help conservatives take control. Complaining that others aren’t as zealous as you about defeating liberal ideas has a ceiling of justifiability that corresponds to the zeal you demonstrate by actually putting in the work. If campaigning to get conservatives elected is also beneath you, I’m curious about what sort of activity rises to the level of your dignity.
I live in KY and would love to get rid of Mitch. HOWEVER, given the slim “majority” in the Supreme Ct., (We would have lost Heller if one vote had changed.) I will hold my nose mightily and vote for Mitch. The nation MUST have a Republican senate before the next SCt seat becomes available.
You get involved by joining the local party and helping a local pol get elected. From there you consider how to become one of the committee leaders. THOSE are the ones that slate people. From there you can help get people you want slotted in for seats.
Daley controlled the whole city of Chicago by being the head of the Democratic committee, and by controlling the committee leaders. From there he held iron rule over the city.
I couldn’t help noticing the ad is titled “Skeet Shooting”. That is not skeet shooting.
Some gun nut she is.
Well it’s not skeet or trap, just target practice.
Palin was denied a prime-time speaking slot at the 2012 convention. The party establishment’s treatment of her (and of Tea Party conservatives generally) is what prompted me to end my twenty-year affiliation with the GOP in December of that same year.
As much as I despise the Democratic Party, I am no longer under any illusions that every Republican is automatically an ally of mine. The near-treasonous behavior of many Republicans on the border security and amnesty issues being a perfect example.
Yeah ok, it’s not officially trap but the clays were thrown from the ground heading basically away from her.
“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.”
I don’t think this is accurate. I think most Republicans AND conservatives are fine with him establishing his moderate bona fides for purposes of being governor of deep-blue New Jersey. It’s when he’s offered by the GOPE as a legitimate GOP contender for POTUS 2016 that his moderate bona fides are condemned. He can be a moderate GOP governor in New Jersey, I’m fine with that and I’m sure most conservatives are, too. But there’s not even the chance of a snowball in hell that I’d pull the lever for him for POTUS. That’s a bridge too far.
Ditto for me and Scott Brown.
Not sure I understand the hostility toward McConnell. His ACU ratings in reverse chronological order (starting with 2013) are 92/100/unknown/96/96/80/92 and he held together the entire GOP, including such squishes as Maine’s Collins and Snowe, in opposition to Obamacare, for which a single GOP vote in support would have enabled the media and the Left to claim it to be “bipartisan.” That all sounds pretty good, and infinitely better than the non-skeet-shooting skeet-shooting fraud.
And let’s not forget SCOTUS…
Except for the fact that of the ones who don’t, virtually ALL of them come from the GOP side of the aisle. That’s the reason conservatives should worry about Christie.
With McConnell whipping the vote against Cruz and Lee, what do you expect? And you have Snowe to thank for ObamaCare. If voting no on cloture was off the table, there wouldn’t be a cloture vote.
Does supporting open borders help Christie get elected in NJ? Does being squishy on the 2nd Amendment help Scott Brown get elected in NH? It just gives people reasons not to vote for you.
You have to give Democrat voters reasons to cross over while inspiring the Republican base to turnout. That comes from persuasively articulating the Republican position. The reason is you are trying to peel off voters whose positions differ from those of the Democratic Party but who vote D due to ethnopolitics, peer pressure, and the like.
The rare exception would be when the Democrats run an unusually poor candidate like an incumbent governor who appears to be a week or two from indictment.
@dittoheadadt- ” I think most Republicans AND conservatives are fine with him establishing his moderate bona fides for purposes of being governor of deep-blue New Jersey. It’s when he’s offered by the GOPE as a legitimate GOP contender for POTUS 2016 that his moderate bona fides are condemned. He can be a moderate GOP governor in New Jersey, I’m fine with that and I’m sure most conservatives are, too. But there’s not even the chance of a snowball in hell that I’d pull the lever for him for POTUS. That’s a bridge too far.”
I think you are throwing him under the bus far too early. Michael Medved has pointed out that the Republican Party normally nominates candidates who are regarded as moderate (as Reagan was in 1980). Given that he is one of the few Republicans who is good at politics, and has shown both a broad appeal and a significant ability to get Hispanic and black votes, I suggest we see how he campaigns and what commitments he makes if he runs before we rule him out.
While this is fodder for another thread, the GOP usually nominates someone on the basis of seniority in the party. So I think if Romney follows Pat Buchanan’s suggestion and does a Nixon-like comeback, he likely would have it in the bag. Else if Romney doesn’t run, Jeb Bush, who is hinting at running, would probably get it due to being next in line with the Bush family dynasty. If neither decide to run. I think it would be a toss-up between Perry, Christie, or less likely, Walker or Jindal, with Niki Haley being the wild card. I don’t see Cruz or Rubio being nominated due to lack of experience.
Foreign policy will likely be a major issue by 2016, given Obama’s feckless foreign policy, so I wonder which of our GOP contenders have any grounding in that area.
She was offered a position with a vetted speech despite her refusal to endorse the nominee. She refused to endorse the nominee or have her speech vetted. Why she couldn’t agree to give a decent speech like any number of other conservatives I don’t know.
Do you think it was wrong for the RNC to want to vet the speech, such that they could coordinate messages between the various speakers, as they did with the other speakers?
Do you think that it was helpful either to the Tea Party or to the party as a whole for her not to endorse until the last moment (and many votes had been cast)?
The question is whether all other speakers were placed under the same restrictions. Would she have needed approval to talk to an empty chair?
Giving the GOP a Senate caucus run by nearly anyone but McConnell would be an improvement, and ditching Mitch would go a long way towards “creating a political environment where the ‘wrong’ people do the right thing because it is in their electoral interest to do so.”
@Carey J.- Ditching Mitch can be done by picking another Senate Majority leader, not by risking or sacrificing a Republican Senate majority.
Technically true, practically, not so much.
In general, lots of effort was gone to to coordinate messages, but it’s true that Christie and Eastwood both got passes on the requirement; Christie had been a relatively good team player to that point, and chose the buildup to the convention to go rogue. I’ve no idea why they didn’t do more to coordinate Eastwood’s speech with the rest of the message. I think it’s pretty clear that it was a mistake to have exceptions, not a mistake to have the rule.
?SO how about we FIRST get a real Senate majority, THEN go about ditching McConnell. Recollect that the English ditched Churchill AFTER he won them the war – no sense changing horses in mid-stream.
Besides, you might get more traction if you strongly supported ALL the republican nominees – to show you can work within the system – THEN demand certain changes, having established your bona fides.
Excuse me, but Allison Grimes is a shameless, contemptible liar. At the soonest opportunity she’ll vote to ban guns, completely if she’s instructed to do so by her political masters, with a smile on her face- and then lie about it, shamelessly, openly, relentlessly.
If Mitch McConnell can’t understand that, can’t bring himself to explain that to the people of his state, even when running against her, and is in danger of losing his office when subjected to her shameless lies- then he is a fool, completely unsuited to retain his office or, worse, become majority leader of the Senate.
I have long since grown weary of Republicans who are so completely hapless that they cannot make a case for their own election other than that they will promise to stop the insidious schemes of the other party.
That is, the Republicans of the GOP establishment. They fail, over and over again, and then blame the people who voted for them.
I’m done.