Third Party Power

The election in NY-23rd is about third party power, and professional politicians are trying to suppress that fact. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats want the public to realize this, for obvious reasons. The media are complicit with establishment insiders, so they are not saying anything. And the bloggers, bless them, who would ordinarily be the purveyors of truth, don’t have the length and depth of political experience to understand what is going on. It requires an understanding of the legal mechanics of candidate selection and a long memory…

Let us be perfectly clear about the situation in New York’s 23rd Congressional District special election. Three distinct political parties with legal status in New York put up viable candidates:

• The Republican Party nominated New York State Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava in a smoke-filled room deal.
• The Democratic Party nominated community activist and 30-year practicing lawyer Bill Owens.
• The Conservative Party nominated community leader, business entrepreneur, and Certified Public Accountant Doug Hoffman.

The fresh-faced Hoffman, reminiscent of Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, has the most appeal with voters in the district weary of government excess (almost an art form in the state of New York), and has pulled ahead in the polls. The Conservative Party selected the most likable candidate and has the best message, and so they are ahead. It is as simple as that. It is a reprise of the election of US Senator James Buckley on the Conservative line in 1970, when he proved more popular than both the Republican and Democratic candidates.

There is nothing sacred about the Republican and Democratic parties. Political party organizations are not provided for in the Constitution of the United States. They are merely incorporated entities that provide for pooling money and manpower to support candidates for public office. They have acquired the veneer of “official” status by being around for a long time, but they are no more “official” than any newly minted party, which can be formed under state election law by meeting certain requirements.

For example, to put a name on the ballot in New York State requires the signatures of five percent of the registered voters in the juridiction.  As of April 1, 2009, there were 15,339 registered voters in New York’s 23rd Congressional District.  So volunteers had to collect valid signatures from at least 767 registered voters on “designating petitions” for Doug Hoffman to run for Congress.

Do you understand how feasible that is? Twenty people collecting 10 signatures per night for one week can collect 1400 signatures. That is easily done by going door to door in your neighborhood. Or you can just stand outside the local grocery store and collect signatures from shoppers as they enter. The totals rack up quickly. It is no more difficult than, say, selling Girl Scout cookies. And your kids can do that.

One advantage that the two so-called “major” political parties have is that they retain a cadre of volunteers trained in the collection of signatures, which have to meet certain book-keeping requirements. For instance, the person has to sign the petition in exactly the same way that his or her name appears on the voter registration. So you need to have that information before you start your rounds, but that information is a matter of public record, and the state cannot deny you access to it. The other advantage of the “major” parties is that they have established fund-raising channels. And as we see in NY-23rd, that isn’t doing them a lot of good in the face of an outraged populace.

On Thursday, February 19 of this year, CNBC reporter Rick Santelli called for a “Chicago Tea Party” while reporting from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. Within two short months, powered only by bloggers, a national “tea party” movement had organized across the country to hold rallies on tax day, April 15. Along about the 4th of July, another round of tea parties erupted across America, and sentiment grew for a march on Washington. A little over two months after that, one of the largest grass-roots crowds ever seen in the District of Columbia marched on the Capitol.

What if…

What if, instead of attending rallies, or marching on Washington, these aroused patriots had been carrying designating petitions? The whole political landscape of America could be changed within one year! And that is the 900 pound gorilla in the political closet that the Republicans and Democrats do not want you to know about or think about. It scares them witless.

All the talking heads and political hacks are painting the congressional race in NY-23rd as a rift in the Republican ranks. It is not. It is a third party candidate proving that the Republicans and Democrats can be made irrelevant in the face of tea party power. It is proving this in the full glare of the national spotlight. And the only way that the entrenched politicians can save their own bacon is by spinning the story to distract the public from the obvious truth. All the king-makers’ horses and all the king-makers’ men cannot defeat an honest tea party patriot once ordinary Americans wake up.

Also on American Daughter

 

Basic Flaws in the GOP’s Thinking

 

The Republican Party is comprised of people who have conservative beliefs, but not all conservative beliefs are viewed with the same degree of importance.

Conservatives believe in smaller government. We want to elect a like-minded individual to office and then let them run with the ball. We have our own lives and jobs, let them do theirs and do we right and we will do ours. We expect our elected officials to honest, ethical, steadfast and live the conservative principles.

Conservatives believe in the individual not the group, not the collective. As a result Conservatives are not joiners. We are also not blind followers.

The RNC seems to believe that the vocal minority is whom they must pander to, instead of adhering the principles of the party base. The majority of true conservatives, those conservative in both social and fiscal responsibility, probably do not like belonging to a political “party” and many don’t. In those states where independents can vote in primaries without joining either party there is a large number of “independent” registered voters whom are real conservatives.

Closed primaries, Semi-closed primaries, Semi-open primaries and caucuses disenfranchise a large section of the voting public. While I understand the gaming that goes on in Open primaries and the raiding, there has to be a way that includes all voters in each step of the election process.

Conservatives are individuals. They are leaders of 7themselves, fiercely independent. The only way to appeal to this group is to listen to them and include them. 

Conservatives who demand to be group leaders tend to be from the centrist mold. These people espouse some conservative talking point but can be spotted by their constant pursuit of more “fame”, influence and the almighty dollar. They attempt to organize and then control a group, but real conservatives question every thing and will never be “controlled”.

Conservatives simply need to be provided honest information and then pointed in a direction; guided not led. The RNC should consider providing the voting public with straight data without no hyperbole or misleading statements. RINO’s and other spineless officials should not be allowed to hang their careers on Party membership; actions speak louder than words or labels. 

Larger is not better. Conservatives prefer smaller. In some areas a County-wide organization may work but conservatives are more inclined to smaller groups 10 to 30 people in neighborhood “cells” where they feel their input is actually heard. These small neighborhood groups determine how much or how little they do based on their opinions.

If the information, ideas or suggestions from the grassroots gets lost on its way up the chain, the voters will continue on but as individuals thereby reducing their effectiveness. 

The Conservative platform is like the boat. The grassroots groups are the outboard motor and the RNC should be the tiller not the rudder. The destination is a free republic that follows the tenets of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Federalist Papers.

 
 

 

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Ghost Ranger, Tex’s first novel, is now available on Lulu and Amazon.

 

 

 

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Squandered Opportunities

Listening to the Sean Hannity radio show today, I found it humorous to listen to a caller who said McCain deserved to and should win.  If only Hannity had argued with that statement.  Alas, I guess Hannity is to much of a partisan to see reality.

I really don’t see how anyone can argue that McCain deserved to win.  Aside from the fact that he’s not and never was a conservative, he’s run a dismal campaign!  Until the last week or ten days, he wasn’t even really fighting.  Coming on strong late in the game was simply too little, too late.

The fact is, though, McCain didn’t lose this by himself.  The roots of this loss go back to 1994 and the Republican take over under Newt Gingrich.  In ‘94 the Republicans ran on a very specific platform that was completely grounded in conservatism.  Four decades of Democrat control of Congress had demonstrated the folly of liberal big government.  So too had Ronald Reagan the 80s. To bad those Republicans who swept in to Congress in ‘94 didn’t hold to the conservative principles that got them elected.  Instead, they abandoned conservatism in favor of big government and the nanny state.

Republicans in Congress weren’t alone, however, in squandering power.  The top of the party, none other than the President, really took us down.  Together the President and the Republican controlled Congress lead us to the largest expansion of government since LBJ’s Great Society.  We got the new Medicaid Prescription Drug Benefit and the No Child Left Behind Act, both enormous spending bills that dramatically increased the federal bureaucracy.  We got the Department of Homeland Security, a cabinet level agency that dwarfs its predecessors both in bureaucratic bloat and inefficiency.  We got “compassionate conservatism” which is just a euphemism for Republican liberalism that bears no resemblance to actual conservatism.  From a big government perspective and from a spending perspective, Republicans had become as bad as or perhaps worse than Democrats!  And that cost Republicans control of Congress in 2006.

In the two years since the ‘06 election, not much has changed among Republicans.  With few exceptions, Republican leadership blamed the ‘06 losses on the Iraq war instead of their big government, big spending habits.  While the war didn’t help, it was by no means the primary reason for the overwhelming losses.  Combine that with the fact that the vast majority of Democrat gains in Congress were attained by running candidates who ran as conservatives.

We all know, of course, that those “conservative” Democrats turned out not to be so conservative.  Indeed, with the abysmal single digit approval ratings for the current Congress, it should have been possible for Republicans to retake some of those lost seats.  But alas, hardly a conservative was in sight.  There are notable exceptions to be sure but by and large, the term conservative Republican has become a virtual oxymoron.

So here we are in 2008.  Obama has won the White House and, in spite of their horrible ratings, Democrats have substantially increased their leads in the House and Senate.  Even though they have not achieved their hoped for 60 vote margin in the Senate, the reality is, with RINOs like Snow and Collins they won’t have much trouble stopping any principled conservative filibuster.  Republicans are now basically bystanders with no hope of stopping anything Democrats want to do.

For most Republicans this is a bleak picture indeed but I see a bright silver lining.  I said several months ago that this was the best thing that could happen to the Republican Party.  A McCain win would have set conservatism back a generation both because McCain would do all he could to rid the party of conservatives and because Republicans would get the blame for all the harm McCain would do as President.

As it is the Democrats have taken full responsibility for everything going forward.  If the economy is bad in 2010, it’ll be the Democrats fault.  If we have major foreign policy problems, Democrats get the blame.  Pretty much everything that goes wrong will be their fault.  And who doesn’t believe the Democrats will screw it up?

As well, the complete and utter failure of liberalism in the Republican Party has been fully unmasked.  I’ll be surprised if the Republicans in the House and Senate don’t replace their inept leadership with some real conservatives.  From there it will be possible to rebuild the party from the ground up.  It would then, perhaps, be possible to get some national support for real conservatives as opposed to the tendancy the RNC has had to support moderates (read RINOs).

None of this is a sure thing of course.  Democrats could do a decent job.  Republicans could continue to embrace the strategy that has been such a failure.  Pigs could learn to fly.  Who knows?  One thing that will certainly be required is for grass roots conservatives to become involved and work to make the needed changes.  We need to recruit and field solid conservative candidates for 2010.  We need to put extreme pressure on the Republicans left in Congress to be conservative.  We need to let them know their political futures depend on it.  If we won’t do that we deserve the party we’ve got.

Night One of the GOP Convention

This commentary on GOP Convention speeches from last night comes from Chuck Muth at Muth’s Truths.  Pretty good commentary in my view.

A tough balancing act faced Republicans with how to handle President Bush. Not the most popular guy in America today, or even in his own party. But the man is the sitting incumbent president. You couldn’t “dis” him and not have him speak at all, much as some may have liked. But giving him a relatively short speaking role via satellite seemed to strike the right balance. Republicans certainly treated Bush tonight better than Democrats have treated Carter for many, many years…and to this day.

* President Bush did throw a little red meat out there, telling the GOP faithful – as well as the rest of the nation watching on TV – that if his captors at the “Hanoi Hilton” couldn’t break John McCain’s resolve, the “angry left” sure won’t. Ya hear that, Michael Moore?

Read more at Muth’s Truths

RonBots Still Marching, Trying to Take Over County Conventions

While Ron Paul has long since given up on the Republican presidential nomination, his supporters have not. In an email sent out Saturday, Restore the Republic, an organization of Ron Paul supporters, makes the following charge:

At the Nueces County Republican party convention, March 29th, in Corpus Christ Texas, Ron Paul supporters walked out in protest and held their own emergency convention in the parking lot. Republican party Chairperson Mike Bertuzzi grossly violated party rules by announcing new delegates to the morning’s roll call who were never elected as precinct delegates on the night of the Republican primary, then again by ignoring repeated objections by party delegates, which he is required to recognize.

They claim that local newspaper reports were one sided, indicating that party chair Mike Bertuzzi was a hero for thwarting the attempt to take over the party. Interestingly, however, a successful takeover occurred April 9th in Missouri’s 5th congressional district. In that country convention Ron Paul supporters won all three delegates to the Republican Convention using similar tactics to the events in Texas. According to the Kansas City Star:

Read more

Romney Drops Out (Updated by Jenn, live from CPAC)

UPDATED by Jenn:

Minutes after Mitt Romney dropped out of the Race,
here is what was left of his campaign…and, some would argue,
the conservative movement in 2008.Laura Ingraham gave a rousing introduction for Mitt Romney on Thursdsay, at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington DC., and a rally for conservatism in general. Introduced as a person who had been a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution, she stated:

It’s not enought to say that you ‘were’ a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution. The Question is, ‘What have you done for Conervatism, lately?’

She added,

An obsession with bi-partision compromises does not keep us free.

Then Romney got up, and credited the Conservative Leadership Conference in 2007 for giving him a chance in this 2008 campaign, long before he became a frontrunner in the election. Unfortunately, he also repeated the same bizarre statement that he had not wow’d the CLC ‘07 attendees, either, that he was proud of the fact that America had never “taken land,” in a conflict.

He discussed the importance of conserving the culture of America, including the value of hard work and dedication, opportunity, belife in God, freedom, and family, and explained he felt the threat to this culture comes from within – and that threat is the dependency on government programs as well as the attack on our faith and morality.

“We will not be disuaded by the snickers and knowing glances,” he said, as he stressed the importance of standing up for American values.

Then, as Mitt Romney announced at CPAC that he was stepping aside and endorsing John Mccain because his (Romney’s) campaign was going to allow Hillary or Obama to win, cheers of “Mitt! Mitt! Mitt! rapidly turned to Boo’s… Romney explained that he disagreed with McCain on many issues but agreed with him on some important ones like national security, and the need for a Republican victory in 2008.

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Saying he did not want to be responsible for the Democrats winning the White House in November, Mitt Romney today dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination. Speaking at CPAC, Romney said a long nomination battle going all the way to the convention was detrimental to the party and the nation. He said the national campaign for November needs to start now and his presence in the race prevented that.Romney did not endorse either Huckabee or McCain but the pundits seem to universally believe the race is over and John McCain has won. Of course, the pundits have consistently underestimated Huckabee and it is likely that many Romney supporters will not support McCain. Their only alternative is Mike Huckabee.

There has also been no mention of the delegates Romney has already racked up. They have to go somewhere and it is unclear what Romney will do with the. Possibly he’ll wait to see what happens in the next few primaries.

The bottom line is, this thing isn’t over. The race has changed but it is still a race. I wouldn’t put too much confidence in the predictions of the pundits considering their track record so far.

Also see:

• Ron’s Musings: Romney Exits with Barn Burner Speech
• Girl on the Right: Mitt Romney’s Announcement to CPAC