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Welcome to the Cocktail Party
Is Rep. Paul Ryan now an Establishment™ RINO squish? This piece in National Review explains that Ryan is now deemed unacceptable to lead House Republicans because of his past immigration stances. Yes, border security is paramount. Yes, this means that we should apply additional pressure on the Republican leadership to make sure they don’t try the “comprehensive” approach with President Obama.
But let’s be realistic. Obama has just over a year, and that isn’t going to happen. So the goal should be to find someone who can unify Republicans on a strategy that will force Obama to accept popular conservative positions (okay, not likely), as well as force Obama to defend unpopular leftist positions, thwart Obama’s executive ambitions, and create popular support for conservative policies. Ryan is uniquely qualified to do this.
If there are some conservatives who wince at this option, then they should offer a name of someone qualified to lead and not simply throw out past apostasies.
In the meantime, let’s enjoy our Georgetown cocktail parties!
Published in Domestic Policy, Politics
I like your idea re ‘just fight it out’.
I realize this is a painful process and there are legitimate concerns about the optics entering a presidential election season, but there is a lot of value in clarity.
We may have to throw some rocks and break some furniture, but figuring out what the republican party stands for may help the long run. It may also end up in more fractured pseudo-three-party system.
This WSJ piece by Chris DeMuth from today is very relevant to this discussion. He writes,
“The key is to recognize that the members of the Freedom Caucus are not stupid or deranged; they are smart and calculating. They do not actually imagine that closing down the government over the debt ceiling or Planned Parenthood or the particulars of another continuing resolution will extract policy concessions from President Obama. Instead they are avid for Promethean drama and opportunities for personal display.”
There’s a lot more, so I recommend the entire piece.
Sounds like a typical WSJ hit piece on anyone that thinks limited government actually means less government.
My hope is that everyone realizes exactly where they stand, which is that no one bloc can run the House of Representatives by itself and that no one bloc seems capable of persuading the others that it can. That is the reality of the situation or else we wouldn’t be here.
The best case scenario, without crossing over into wishful thinking, is that the caucus can move forward in the most conservative manner that can get 218 votes. It’s not everything I want, but it’s probably as much as anyone can realistically hope for.
Can you explain your reasoning?
From the excerpt, I never would have imagined your conclusion.
TARP, NCLB, Medicare expansion, auto bailouts, amnesty
Ryan supported them all, vigorously. That’s not conservative and is in fact the main reason why conservatives were sent into the wilderness during the GWB years.
That being said, the House Freedom Caucus actually doesn’t care all that much what a Speaker’s voting record is. They want process changes to weaken the centralized power of leadership and empower individual members.
Based on the excerpt I read it as saying the freedom caucus prioritizes drama over furthering legislation or using the power of the purse to stop funding the Obama agenda.
I went and read the entire article and it does its usual WSJ share of condescending to the freedom caucus et al.
Kevin does do a fair analysis about the relative timelines between the groups and I think he is the first to acknowledge the legitimate concerns of the freedom caucus in the pages of the WSJ.
He is still most condescending in that he believes the freedom caucus are more interested in drama for drama’s sake rather than using the leverage of the House to stop the Obama agenda.
I wonder if that doesn’t prove to be a mixed blessing in the long run. What might empower them also empowers the so-called “governing caucus” too. I don’t take a position on the specific problems of the inner workings of the House, so this isn’t so much me being against as recognizing that this might cut both ways for our side.
I saw it last night. I quit reading when it became apparent that he hadn’t interviewed any Liberty Caucus members before writing it.
Process changes. Hmmm. That’s what our Constitution was about. Process.
That’s what extreme leftwingers criticize about our form of government. They say it’s too process-oriented.