A group of conservative Republicans is set to offer a resolution be considered at next month’s Republican National Committee meeting in Hawai’i, calling on party candidates to embrace a majority of a group of ten positions based on core conservative principles to gain and retain RNC endorsements and funding.  I think it’s a brilliant idea that is right for the times.  I acknowledge that there are those who disagree and are concerned that such a resolution may end up bringing about more problems than it will solve.  But I hold that the resolution will help demonstrate to Republican base voters that the party is serious about a return to conservative principles.

Erick spoke for many conservatives in his reasoned and sincere criticism of the pledge resolution.  They are primarily concerned that requiring candidates to take a pledge of this kind will give liberal Republicans cover to proclaim themselves conservative.  They worry the pledge will result in more, not less, fiascoes like the DeDe Scozzafava candidacy in New York’s 23rd congressional district.

But the ten positions are written in a way that is broad enough that any Republican should be able to easily clear the bar of 8 out of 10 that the resolution requires.  Yet, the positions are specific enough to demonstrate both to base voters and disillusioned independents just what Republicanism entails.  And, the positions talk about what we as Republicans stand for, rather than simply what we stand against.

Read More →

I typically see eye to eye with RNC Committeeman Jim Bopp, but we are going to have to agree to disagree on a proposed resolution to be debated at the RNC’s Winter meeting. The media is calling it a “purity test” for Republicans. In essence, candidates would be presented with a list of vaguely worded issues and the RNC would be asked to withhold money from any candidate that disagreed with more than two.

Rome long ago stopped selling indulgences, but conservatives keep right on selling them. Look, for example, at NY-23. The moment Dede Scozzafava signed ATR’s no new tax pledge, she was absolved of all her sins, including voting for 198 tax increases in the New York legislature.

Therein lies the inherent problem with candidates signing off on well meaning pablum — there are no teeth and the party will not serve as its own enforcer.

While I applaud the desire of conservative RNC members to try to put the train back on the tracks, I am afraid this will do what the ATR pledge did in Scozzafava’s case — give a lot of candidates cover to pretend to be conservative. People are naturally inclined to short circuit educational processes. People will look at this list to see if a candidate signed off on the issues. If the candidate did, well by God they must be conservative — never mind their voting record or prior statements. After all, only a week before Scozzafava signed the ATR pledge she was bashing Hoffman for having signed it. Never mind though, all was forgiven once Scozzafava signed it too.

Conservatives in the RNC, however well meaning they may be, risk giving liberal candidates easy opportunities to get conservative endorsements simply by checking the box without ever meaning it.

Compare this to the Contract With America in 1994. That document had ten items that were substantive policy positions heavily poll tested and vetted to make sure something like 70% of the American public agreed with each one. Each statement was popular and therefore did not put candidates in awkward positions with voters, as some of the presently suggested issues do. And while there was no enforcement mechanism there either, there did not have to be — every issue was poll tested, mother approved, and voter supported.

Not so with this. And because this, unlike the Contract With America, might affect funding and seals of approval in the primary process, this becomes far more troublesome.

I would encourage the conservative members of the RNC to let conservatives sort out who is and is not a conservative, as opposed to letting any Dede sign up with no intention of ever living up to the pledge. Besides, the Republican Platform specifically says the GOP is opposed to government bailouts of industry, something the GOP, with a Republican President, pushed through Congress in 2008. If the GOP cannot live up to its own platform adopted at a national convention, it sure as heck won’t live up to any pledge put forward by a group of RNC committeemen.

Actions are far more important than words. We should leave it at that.

Republicans are - rightly - crowing this morning about the GOP’s victories in the New Jersey Governor’s race and a battery of races in Virginia from the Governorship on down and what they say about the turn in the national mood, if not in a pro-Republican direction then at least in a direction that’s sufficiently hostile to the Democrats that voters in states won by Obama and dominated by the Democrats in the last few years are willing to give individual Republicans another chance.

But the key word there, even in an across-the-board sweep like happened in Virginia, is individual. There remains an ongoing battle on the Right over how Republicans choose which candidates to support - who voters and the national party organs should back in primaries, when and whether to support third party candidacies, etc. It’s a battle intensified by Doug Hoffman’s loss in the NY-23 race after the NRCC-backed candidate, Dede Scoazzafava, ended up swinging the race to the Democrats when she endorsed Bill Owens. But in making sense of such debates, this is a point that cannot be stressed enough: no matter how favorable or unfavorable the overall national climate may be, no matter what ideological compass you want the party to follow, you can’t ever overlook the importance of the individual candidates and the conditions they run in. I said it in 2008 with regard to presidential campaigns, and it’s true as well of races for Governor, Senate or House: ideas don’t run for president, people do.

Read More →

How can this be?

Conservatives continue to outnumber moderates and liberals in the American populace in 2009, confirming a finding that Gallup first noted in June. Forty percent of Americans describe their political views as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 20% as liberal. This marks a shift from 2005 through 2008, when moderates were tied with conservatives as the most prevalent group.

I hope the RNC, GOP, NRSC, NRCC, etc. are paying attention to this.

As I have noted repeatedly, data from the 2008 exit polling showed that more people considered themselves “conservative” than “liberal.” This new Gallup poll is in accord with that.

This goes straight to NY-23, where both the DCCC and NRCC are attacking Doug Hoffman, the conservative candidate. Apparently, unlike the NRCC, the DCCC sees a path to victory for Doug Hoffman.

When the GOP paints a clearly distinct picture of ideas and issues from the Democrats, they win. Voters do not want to vote for Democrat-lite when they get have the real thing. The GOP should offer competing ideas, not just repacked Democrat ideas that have lower price tags.

We have a lot of readers and fans in Tennessee (not to mention Leon) and after reading this article by A.C. Kleinheider I think it is time for all of us nationally to focus a bit on Tennessee.

For the longest time Tennessee has elected squishy moderates state wide. Howard Baker was conservative, but in a “compromise his mother to advance his goal” sort of way. Arguably Lamar Alexander is even worse, refusing to do anything that does not advance bipartisanship, even at the expense of core conservative goals. Hell, Alexander is not even and does not consider himself to be, a conservative.

Bob Corker, who I know and like, is definitely and defiantly to the right of Alexander, but even Corker is more a pragmatist, willing to compromise on big and small issues — no doubt affected by his time as a mayor. I’m finding that municipal politics can skew one’s perspective on the need to work across the aisle.

Tennessee has never elected to state wide office rock-ribbed movement conservatives. They’ve elected George W. Bush types who have conservative inclinations, but are not conservatives. As Kleinheider puts it:

Republicans will run Tennessee but which Republicans hold power and in what capacity will make a huge difference. Traditionally, Tennessee Republicans have talked a conservative game, but there’s a difference between being conservative — adjective —and being a conservative — noun.

A movement conservative, for example, has never won a statewide primary and gone on to win a general election.

But as Tennessee grows further right and expands its Republican domination of the state next year — the GOP just took the State House and have expanded its margin in a special election — and becomes the entrenched party of power, we’re going to see more and more actual, factual conservatives moving up.

That brings me to two races.

Read More →

Well, that didn’t take long. Those of us who expected the Democrats, with control over three DC houses — House,  Senate and White House — to blow it didn’t expect it happen so quickly. But it seems that the donkey party, by misinterpreting their 2008 election victory as a mandate (it wasn’t) and by overreaching on the stimulus, abortion, cap and trade, health care reform and other major issues, has managed to destroy what good will they have won for themselves with the electorate.

Pubic polling Top Gun Scott Rasmussen reports his latest findings:

Voters now trust Republicans more than Democrats on eight out of 10 key electoral issues, including, for the second straight month, the top issue of the economy. They’ve also narrowed the gap on the remaining two issues, the traditionally Democratic strong suits of health care and education.

Rasmussen’s survey found that for the second straight month, Republicans held their six-point lead over the Democrats on economic issues among all voters, only the second time in over two years of his polling that the GOP has had the advantage on economic matters. Especially worrisome for the Democrats has to be the metric that independents now trust Republicans more to handle the economy by a 46% to 32% margin. What’s behind the shift in trust from the ruling party to the opposition?

Read More →

Folks, we’ve invited Ted to the RedState Gathering on August 1st and I hope you’ll come to Atlanta to meet him. He is the real deal and we’re glad to have him on our front page. — Erick

These are challenging times for conservatives, and our fundamental liberties are being threatened from Washington like never before. Nevertheless, I’m very optimistic.

Across Texas and nationally, there is a tremendous hunger for new and principled leadership. I’m convinced that the most lasting legacy of Barack Obama will be new leaders stepping forward across the nation who are committed to standing up for conservative values.

And I’m hopeful that our campaign for Texas Attorney General can play an important part of that effort.

Read More →

Herman Cain encourages those of us who believe in less government, less taxes and less dependence on government (Conservatives), to continue to oppose President Obama’s effort to drag the nation far to the left:

First, we can and must continue to voice our opposition loudly and collectively to wrongheaded, anti-liberty and anti-free-market proposals. There are some moderate Democrats who are against these socialist policies, and they recognize that their congressional seats may not be bullet-proof in November 2010. They need to know we are paying attention.

Second, the power of the ballot box has not diminished. It has just been temporarily hijacked by liberals. Thomas Jefferson observed that “The American people won’t make a mistake, if they are given all of the facts.”

We can and will continue to give people the facts.

Left-wing Liberals/Progressives may have won control of the government with the help of the biased main stream media, but Conservatives outnumber Liberals.

Read More →

That’s one of the questions being debated over at Politico’s “Arena” blog. Here’s my take, in a nutshell, on Sotormayor’s statement at Berkley in 2001 that the “richness of experience” of a “wise Latina woman” makes her more fit to judge (or more likely to “reach a better conclusion”) “than a white male”:

This is a whole bunch of nothing to most liberals, who accept as the natural order of things that empathy and common ethnic experience are more important in Constitutional law than dispassionate review and application of an objective standard. To conservatives, on the other hand, Sotomayor’s “wise Latina” statement is a something — if not necessarily a “big deal” — because it injects subjectivity into an objective process, and because it reflects an adoption of the race-and-gender-obsessed liberal worldview that denies any objective good outside of “diversity” for its own sake.

Given that Sotomayor’s speech from which the “wise Latina” quote was pulled was part of a symposium entitled “Raising the Bar: Latino and Latina Presence in the Judiciary and the Struggle for Representation,” it’s not surprising or offensive in the least that she discussed race as a topic. However, rather than using that pulpit to acknowledge that neither minority status nor an impoverished upbringing was the sine qua non of effectively interpreting legal texts and applying them to cases (her job as an appellate judge), Sotomayor chose to declare that, in her estimation, a white male simply isn’t as fit to render legal judgment as a “wise Latina woman.”

There’s a very clear reason why this statement has half of the nation up in arms. Ironically, the other half, which is brushing this aside and saying it’s no big deal, would be calling for the head of any white male who said his race and gender made him more qualified to judge than any “Latina woman.” The difference in that situation is that, had a white male said such a thing, conservatives would be condemning it as well — something race-and-gender-obsessed liberals simply can’t bring themselves to do with regard to Sotomayor’s statement, despite the obviousness of the double standard.

Arlen Specter told David Gregory on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday Morning that the GOP has become too conservative:

“The Republican Party has gone far to the right since I joined it under Reagan’s big tent.”

Meghan Mccain says the GOP needs to become more moderate:

“I just wish that moderates like myself — more moderate Republicans and more socially liberal Republicans — weren’t looked at as, ‘Get rid of the dirty moderates. Get rid of them.’”

We hear similar statements from Kathleen Parker, David Brooks, Peggy Noonan and David Frum. I must have missed something here. In what way exactly has the Republican Party moved to the right since Ronald Reagan’s presidency?

Read More →

We’ve talked a lot about rebuilding the party. Let’s talk instead about rebuilding the movement.

Every day in Washington, there is some right-wing group somewhere bemoaning the efforts of the right online. Sadly, for them and the rest of the right, their first thought is “let’s do it ourselves”, instead of “let’s invest in the existing talent.”

It’s often bemoaned on our side that the left is much further ahead online than the right. This is true. The left has larger blogs than the right, though I still think the right has many more sites than the left. The left has a great online investigative journalism wing that gets picked up by the mainstream media. And the left has a stable of full time bloggers than is not matched on the right. I am a very rare breed on our side.

One area where the left has done a much better job than the right online is investing in blogs as a component of left-wing activism.

Read More →

I have heard and read a lot of panic and resignation out there. On the edges of it are despair. Hedge fund operators talk of the new economy of canned food and ammunition, and buying farmland in Canada. Normal family men evidence a peculiar despondency, retreating from the world. What is this?

Today is the last day to capitulate to despair. Today is the last day to retreat from the business of the country — her politics, her traumas, her public disputes. Today is the last day to forget what our ancestors here in America were, and cower in the face of long odds.

Canned food and ammunition are fine, but remember that in most cases your greatest asset is your mind. Even the Capitalism that has largely failed was right about that. The resources of the human mind exceed those of his brute capacity, unless we submit to the crudest tyranny of of philosophical materialism.

So my recommendation to any who may struggle with despair is Remember your wits. Yes, in a sense it is that simple. Your mind is your greatest asset: remember your wits. Despair will take them from you. Despondency is the father of quietism and resignation. Desperation midwifes reckless gambles. Neither condition is one worthy of the people of this Republic. Instead, remember your wits as your fathers remembered theirs in times of trouble.

Let me offer a couple rhetorically-presented examples:

Read More →