Fighting to Preserve Liberty in America
At the conclusion of Newt Gingrich’s speech as CPAC a colleague and I discussed the Republican chances for the White House. That day we heard from Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney and Newt and we both agreed that winning in the fall should not be hard. But a couple of conditions had to be met.
The new model of public service that we are being sold from Democrats and progressives is to get elected and then do nothing and stop anyone who tries to actually serve those who elected them. Shall we call it a politician subsidy or welfare, where we pay them to do nothing?
To hear the progressives talk about the public sector unions in Wisconsin and other locales you would think collective bargaining was enshrined in the Bill of Rights. We have a right to bargain collectively. The unions are fighting for their rights. The Bill of Rights was won through the fighting of a bloody revolution. The right for all citizens to vote was won through the passage of an amendment to the Constitution. So, naturally, the right of public sector unions was won through a similar groundswell of popular support, right? No. Actually it was started by one man, fighting for his political life, in the shadow of Tammany Hall.
Presidential candidate Herman Cain stepped to the podium yesterday afternoon and addressed an enthusiastic crowd. Cain was plain spoken and engaging and immediately connected with his audience.
Long Island’s own Peter King (R) plans to introduce legislation that would make it illegal for someone to knowingly carry a gun within 1,000 feet of certain high-ranking federal officials, including members of Congress. Before I take on the nuttiness of the law itself, I have to ask, “What makes them so special?”
Let the games begin. The Republicans now control the House of Representatives and have pledged to cut $100 billion from the budget in short order. About half a beat later came the howls from the transportation lobby that they can’t possibly mean highway and mass-transit projects. Why is this even a matter for debate?
Daniel Henninger wrote in the Wall Street Journal:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tells of congratulating freshman Sen. Obama on a phenomenal speech. Without a hint of conceit, Mr. Obama replied, “Harry, I have a gift.”
In the article he also describes this observation:
Harvard Law Prof. Charles Ogletree told how Mr. Obama spoke on one contentious issue at the law school, and each side thought he was endorsing their view. Mr. Ogletree said: “Everyone was nodding, Oh, he agrees with me.”
That’s essentially how he got elected. With a heaping helping hand from the popular media, many people saw Obama as a blank screen upon which they could project their own views and see those as Obama’s own. He’s our man! He listens. He cares deeply. For a politician it is a phenomenal gift. For a legislator it is an extremely valuable gift. For an executive it is poison.
Pulling the Trigger
As a politician or a legislator you are in the role of persuader; somebody else makes the decision to vote for you or vote with you, respectively. As an executive you are in the role of the decider. You must make a decision and every decision, especially the tough ones are going to make a good many people unhappy. Perhaps that explains why, in the Illinois Senate, Obama voted “Present” so many times. Voting “Present” rather than “Yea” or “Nay” allowed him to hold that special place where everyone felt he agreed with them. Too many decisions one way or another would have tarnished “the gift”. So why is “the gift” poison for an executive? If you don’t have “the gift” and you make a decision your opponents may disagree with you, but they are not surprised. If you have “the gift” and you make a decision, those on the short side feel betrayed and angry, because they thought you agreed with them and then “sold out” and decided the other way.
Obama is in a tight spot where he has to make decisions and decisions have consequences. When you make a decision it is very hard to make it seem like everyone got their way. His complete lack of executive experience is telling. If he had some executive experience, such as a mayor or a governor, he might have had enough practice learning how to make his decisions appear to satisfy everyone, as his campaign speeches did. But that’s the thing about decisions. If everyone supports them, they’re not much of a decision, like deciding to pardon a turkey on Thanksgiving. Everyone enjoys the decision, but it’s really not what we elect presidents for.
I’ll Have the Waffles, Please
If you watch closely, you can see that Obama is struggling to preserve “the gift”. He said he is for closing Guantanamo, but not yet. He is for pulling out of Iraq, but no timetable. The general he put in charge of Afghanistan, McChrystal, said he needed 40,000 more troops, but Obama could not bring himself to say yes or no. He had to ponder, think, consult, weigh alternatives, and three months later, he gave McChrystal what he asked for. Those on the left complained that he was not pulling out. Those on the right complained that he wasted precious time while our troops were on the battlefield. His backers tried to give him the fig leaf of showing gravitas. He can’t seem to find the magic formula where everyone applauds him. From “the gift” he has gone to “the anti-gift”. Instead of satisfying everyone, he is finding that he is satisfying no one.
Move On
It’s time for Obama to “Move On”. He should put “the gift” in his trophy case right next to his Nobel Peace Prize. It got him to the White House. How much more can he ask of such a thing? So drop the pretense. We all know he is a hard left guy, so he should just be who he is. He may suddenly face a more hostile press, or they may love him more, although that would be hard to believe. But when he makes a decision he will at least please his base, and then his opponents can fight his statist goals without being branded as racists. As a hard left guy he will probably not get re-elected because America is not a hard left country, on the contrary the majority of Americans describe themselves as conservative. But by choosing he can try to do what he can within one term. It will be a battle. Obama’s poll ratings have dropped steadily since his inauguration and the Democrats are likely to lose seats in Congress this fall. As an old acquaintance once said to me, “It’s like standing in the middle of the road. Choose left or choose right, but choose; otherwise you get hit by traffic coming in both directions.”
There is panic in the ranks of the left this Halloween. In today’s Times, Frank Rich, does his level best to whistle past the graveyard, but the fear is clear. He astonishingly titles his piece, “The G.O.P. Stalinists Invade Upstate New York.” I guess they feel the Hitler moniker has lost its zest, so the leftists resort to calling those on the right, Stalinists. Their disorientation could not be more palpable.
What has them in such a tizzy? It centers around the special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional District. The local Republican party bosses chose a candidate, Dede Scozzafava, who would never be mistaken as a conservative, although Mr. Rich actually called her, “a mainstream conservative by New York standards.” That’s like saying David Letterman is chaste by liberal standards, as if these things are measured on a relative scale. But that’s the way liberals and statists think. If your neighbor is more promiscuous than you, then you must be celebate. If you want to make Nancy Pelosi a moderate, move her to Cuba.
Ground Shift
What has Mr. Rich and his cohorts nervously clearing their throats, is that the uprising against the entrenched statists, led by the Tea Parties, actually delivered results. Ms. Scozzafava is pro-abortion, pro-same-sex marriage, pro-Obama stimulus package, pro-card check to make it easier to form a union without a secret ballot election, and supported by ACORN. This is what Mr. Rich calls a conservative, “by New York standards.” What sticks in his craw is that the election was a win-win, for him and his friends. Elect the Republican or the Democrat and it doesn’t matter much, they both hold the same basic views. Then along came Doug Hoffman.
Doug Hoffman threw his hat in the ring on the Conservative Party line. By this Saturday, with support pouring in all across the country from true conservatives, Hoffman was in a dead heat with the conservative and the Republican Scozzafava was fading fast. So she decided to suspend her campaign, and Mr. Rich and company hit the panic button.
So how does Mr. Rich frame his argument? Well he starts by saying Hoffman has no grasp of local issues. Uh, the position is United States Congressman, not city alderman. He well understands the issues at the national level and how the policies of the Obama Administration are bankrupting the country. Those policies will negatively affect the people in his district. But leave it to Mr. Rich to scoff at Hoffman, because he doesn’t know how much pork barrel spending the district needs. A true patriotic Congressman, like John Murtha, finds a way to build an airport in the district that nobody uses and hands the bill to people in other districts like, well, New York’s 23rd. He’s going to Washington to fight those who are bleeding the Treasury dry. So Mr. Rich fights that by calling Fort Drum, home to the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division, a “pork-dependent military base.” Hmmm…the last time I read my copy of the Constitution, it specifically required providing for the national defense. I couldn’t find in my copy where it required building airports no one needed so that John Murtha could get re-elected in perpetuity. I understand it is a fine distinction, but I would have thought someone employed by the New York Times would be able to make it.
Frank Rich’s Happy Talk
Mr. Rich oddly calls the developments in New York as good news. With a recent Gallup Poll, showing that for every self-described liberal there are two self-described conservatives, Mr. Rich says the ideologues that brought about the events in New York’s 23rd, may then start picking off other conservatives and destroy the party. Does he mean conservatives like Arlen Specter, Lincoln Chaffee, Olympia Snow, Susan Collins, Charlie Crist, oh my! With 73% of GOP voters saying that Congressional Republicans have lost touch with their base, this is not good news for Mr. Rich and company. What he believes is that a small cabal of conservatives will put unelectable candidates on the ballot that voters will reject and the Democrats will gleefully reap the rewards. In reality, the GOP leadership has for too long put weak candidates on the ballot that Democrats easily beat because the Republican base cannot get excited about them. McCain is a war hero and worthy of our admiration, but just look at his signature legislation: McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy. He was not a conservative on many fronts.
Nixon was a conservative, Ford was not. Reagan was a conservative, Bush 41 was not and Dole was not. George W. started more conservative than not, but then drifted to become a big spender. McCain was not a conservative. Do you see a pattern here? Conservative Republicans win.
With Obama’s approval rating going down in a virtual straight line, Mr. Rich confidently proclaims that the only politician Obama has to fear is Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan. By all means, Mr. Rich, you keep telling your pals that.
