Posted by
Wil on Tuesday, July 29, 2008 12:11:24 PM
It is the best of times it is the worst of times. When Dickens wrote "A Tale of Two Cities", he contrasted Paris and London in the midst of telling a personal story and the contrast was stark. The contrast of American futures is equally stark. We can return to statism, to nanny state control of every aspect of our lives, or we can chart the path envisioned but never realized by visionaries of a real free market. The direction we choose will not be decided by the occupant of the White House. We get to choose in this election between incremental nannyism and extreme nannyism in our choice between McCain and Obama, bleeding to death by thousands of mosquito bites or pin pricks, or by slitting our wrists and being done with it. Its not that the presidential choice has no meaning, its that the legislative branch has so much more.
Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, to me, represents the best of principled conservative government. Dr. Coburn pledged when he entered the House that he would serve three terms and he did so. He pledged that among other things, he would fight earmarks and corruption and he has done so. Upon winning his senate seat he pledged to serve two terms and he will do so. And this one man is making a stand, doing what he can to fight government waste. He is a lone figure in a club of get along cronyism that has bled our country dry, especially over the last forty years. Senators do not know what to make of a man who does not seek self aggrandizement and the perks of office. I do. We need 51 Senator Coburns to stop the bleeding of out of control spending. (the following article explains how he is alone in obstructing a massive spending approval:
http://thehill.com/david-keene/coburns-cognition-2008-07-28.html )
Meanwhile, in the election, Republicans are in trouble. Apathy among their ranks, enthusiasm for Democrats, a trending towards the Left seems to be inevitable. But as always, I believe the pols are misreading the people. I have not written much recently, there are a number of reasons for that. One of the reasons is that I have not been home much. We spent two weeks of the early summer in Montana camping. We spent a week of July in Oregon visiting family. I spent most of the rest of the summer preparing for school, setting things up so that I have as little homework as possible since I will be starting my Mississippi State online Biology Masters degree in the fall. I will be taking Genetics and Microbiology this fall, and will have very little time or energy for school work at home (or probably for blogging) On these two trips, I saw and read about two senate races that are very telling and very disturbing in their implications for the future of the Republican party.
In Montana, six years ago, an 18 year incumbent Republican was replaced by a Democrat. This was rather shocking in what I always thought was a very red state, but the cronyism and seeming corruption of Conrad Burns (implicated, but never convicted in the Abramoff scandal), and an extreme addiction to bringing home pork, as well as breaking a pledge to serve just 2 terms, sealed his doom. In the other Montana seat, a Democrat named Max Baucus has been in the senate since 1978. This Democrat usually votes with his leadership, except on gun control and environmental bills. Senator Baucus is the one up for reelection this year. Sensing perhaps that he was vulnerable or perhaps that it was time for something different, six Republicans competed in the primary to face off against Baucus. Four of them were not well known, but unquestioned conservatives, people who stood for business as usual. One was the leader of the Republicans in the State House, who according the to Missoulan is most known for conciliation with Democrats: "Lange, gained fame - or at least infamy - in the end days of the 2007 Legislature. That's when he let loose a mouthful of obscenities broadcast on television around the state. Lange also participated in the conciliatory, bipartisan meeting with Democrats that brought an end to the stalemate over the state budget. That little stunt got him removed from his leadership position."
The man who won is not a Republican. Here is what the article in the Missoulan quoted above says about Kelleher and his beliefs: "For the last 44 years, Kelleher has run for office 16 times and lost 15. His only taste of victory came in 1971, when he was elected a delegate to Montana's Constitutional Convention. There, he helped replace the state's century-old territorial constitution with one of the most progressive governing documents in the nation. Kelleher's political passion then, as now, is unique - and largely unpopular: He wants to replace the U.S. Senate, House and presidency with a parliament. Under a parliamentary system, citizens vote for parties, not individual candidates. The party with the most votes selects a prime minister, who serves as a kind of president, from the ranks of the legislative branch. Under a parliament, Kelleher said Wednesday, you can't have a president of one party playing the blame game with a Congress controlled by the opposing party while the nation's real problems and real people wait endlessly for real solutions. “There's no more passing the buck,” he said. “The party in power is responsible for everything that goes wrong, as well as everything that goes right. Now, nobody is responsible, really." Such broad representation would free America to deal with the problems that have literally been known to bring tears to Kelleher's eyes: He is passionate about eradicating poverty. He believes health care is a right of all citizens and the government should pay for it with tax dollars. He believes bad trade policies have shipped American jobs overseas, while bad tax policy has created a startling dichotomy between rich and poor that threatens democracy itself. He believes government exists to serve the common good, not necessarily private interests, and that taxation, if spent wisely, is a solution to America's problems, not the cause. Kelleher said he intends to campaign on those very issues, along with his long-held pro-life stance, in the general election against Baucus.
So many Republicans who voted in the race either knew nothing about the candidates, or they knew only that they didn't want to vote for Lange."
So in Montana, based on the primary votes of just 26,000 people, the Republican party chose what amounts to a passionate 85 year old socialist to run against an entrenched Democratic senator. Why? Because of APATHY. The Republican party had caved in to the Democrats in the state under Lange. Conrad Burns had broken pledges and become a pork wielding pseudo liberal. There were less than 1/2 as many voting Republican as Democrat in the June 3rd primary, and over 20% of those were voting for Libertarian Ron Paul for President. So in this extreme case, can anyone who calls themselves Republican justify voting for a Republican who calls for nationalizing our oil assets, single payer health care, and a broad based government funded war on poverty? Not to mention throwing away the carefully crafted Constitution and replacing our bicameral legislature with a Parliament. What is a conservative in Montana to do?
Nearly as confounding is the Senate race in Oregon. Gordon Smith is a Senator from Pendleton, Oregon who has been serving since 1996. After two terms, he has shown himself to be a political chameleon, willing to change his political colors in order to appeal to the apparently overwhelming majority of liberals in the college towns and big cities of western Oregon. When I got to my Parents house, I saw an ad for him where he boasts of his green credentials, his call for higher gas mileage requirements, his determination to stop global warming, his ability to reach across the aisle and work with Democrats opposing Republicans. He quotes the current Democratic governor and Barack Obama in the ad, both of whom praise his bipartisanship and willingness to go against Bush. Of course his Democratic opponent Jeff Merkley, runs ads calling him a Bush Crony and showing him smiling and waving next to Bush.
What is ironic is that Smith has voted with Republican leadership 82% of the time on contentious bills according to congressional records. He is far more conservative than his Republican predecessor, Mark Hatfield, who voted with Republican leadership 55% of the time. He is consistently pro business, has an 86% pro life voting record, and only has a 14% rating by the League of Conservation Voters. So this man is "conservative" on many issues, and has a decidedly conservative voting record. Yet he has opposed every vote on the Iraq war since switching positions in 2006, and has been an outspoken critic of Bush on every foreign policy issue. He voted for what amounts to government control of television content, for every bill to try and control global warming to come out in the last 3 years, he was one of just 3 Republicans to vote against Coburn and with Democrats on the most recent appropriations bill, his website is one green initiative after another. It is like he has decided that winning is paramount, and to win, he must run as a liberal Republican without core principles. He has been unopposed in the last two primaries, and to me, this is unconscionable. Where are real Republicans in Oregon? Do they think as Governor voters here in California did that 80% right is better than Democrat?
THIS is the problem of the Republican party. Gordon Smith wants to stay in office. Republicans wants to win office. When winning trumps principle, you get RINOs, you get a party that stands for nothing. Tom Coburn is the model of what I look for in a Senator, in a house member, and in a leader. Principled leadership. There is a neccesity to compromise to legislate, but there must be a line you won't cross. There must be principles that are untouchable. There must be a real conservative party, and today there is not.