Categories
Local politics State

An Open Letter to James Evans

The chairman of the Utah Republican Party sent a letter to precinct chairs last week. Unfortunately in that letter, Mr. Evans crossed a line that any elected person whether public official or party officer should never cross.

Mr. Chairman,

You’ve crossed an important line and I am disappointed by you and anyone among the leadership of the Utah Republican Party who felt that the letter you sent to precinct chairs last week was acceptable.

Obviously it is reasonable that you should communicate with precinct chairs. Certainly it is wise that you should inform them of items that you feel are adversely affecting the party that both you and they have been elected to support. Naturally we should expect and even want you to offer suggestions and encouragement for them to make a positive difference on issues of concern. Despite these truths, the paragraph that you requested the precinct chairs to read at the caucus meetings was out of line.

I see nothing wrong with you pointing out the disproportionate ratio of male to female delegates in past conventions. I also have no problem with your efforts to encourage women to run for delegate positions, to invite precinct chairs to do the same, and to share your concerns and the corresponding statistics with caucus attendees. The problem comes in your overt request that caucus attendees elect more female delegates.

I don’t mind if we do elect a higher proportion of women as delegates than we have in the past – my problem with your request isn’t the desire for more female delegates. My problem is that you would publicly express favoritism on intra-party elections. That is completely unacceptable for a party officer.

Our job as caucus attendees is to select the best people we can to represent us as delegates at the state and county conventions. Having more women running for those positions gives us more options to evaluate which is a good thing. Giving us the information regarding the 4 to 1 ratio of men to women in past conventions is useful information so that we can make an informed choice regarding who we send as delegates. Requesting that we elect more women is inappropriate as it is our job, not yours, to determine who in our individual precincts will best represent us – regardless of gender or gender ratio.

I appreciate your desire to make the party and the party conventions the best they can be but there is no excuse for crossing the line into telling party members how they should be shaping the party with their caucus votes.

Categories
life Local politics

Walking the Walk

Anyone who has read here for any length of time knows how willing I am to talk about political issues (just look through the history if you’re new here – or visit Pursuit of Liberty where my political writing is now concentrated). Starting in the latter part of 2008 I decided it was time to do more than talk about political issues I have been working with my state representative and communicating with various officers of the Davis County Republican Party and have now decided to run for Davis County Republican Party Treasurer. I invite all readers who are Davis County Republicans to vote for me at the party organizing convention in 8 weeks. If you know any Davis County Republicans who do not read this blog (there should be at least 10,000 of them) please invite them to support me as well.

Anyone who wants more information about my candidacy is invited to visit my campaign website.

Categories
politics State

A Fresh Face in Congress

I really don’t mind so much if the voters in Utah always choose Republicans to represent them in Congress so long as they replace at least one incumbent on a regular basis (I’d say at least one new face every other election cycle). For that reason, if for no other, I was happy to hear that Jason Chaffetz ousted Chris Cannon in the Republican primary yesterday. District 3 will have a new face and we are guaranteed to have another new face by 2012 with the addition of District 4.

Categories
politics State

Republican Primary – State Treasurer

Today I am hoping that Republican primary voters show that they can see through party connections to select a candidate who might actually be qualified for the office of State Treasurer by selecting Richard Ellis to represent the party on the November ballot.

There are other races where I have a preference, but no others that I could vote in.

Categories
culture National politics

“Republican” Does Not Equal “Conservative”

I was excited to hear The Fall of Conservatism on Radio West and to read the article being discussed. All through the show there was a concern lurking in the back of my brain. When I finally identified it as the unfortunate interchanging of the movement called conservatism with the political party called republican I was all the more anxious to read the original article to see if this same confusion was perpetuated there – it was.

Despite the blurring of terminology, I found the article very enlightening about both the Republican party and the Conservative movement. The first and most important thing to do in teasing apart the Republican brand from the Conservative label is to define what it is to be conservative. Defining Republican is easy because it is nothing more or less than an organized political party – the confusion is that this party has been the primary vehicle through which conservatism has had its political voice. The best definition I have seen of “conservative” comes from Chuck Muth in an email he got from Lyn Nofziger. Muth’s whole post is worth reading but it can be summarized as follows:

  1. Conservatives believe in the Constitution as it is written.
  2. Conservatives believe in small, limited government at every level – along with individual responsibility. (Government should be a resource of last resort.)
  3. Conservatives believe taxes should be levied for the purpose of financing the limited responsibilities of government.

George Packer spends a lot of time in The Fall of Conservatism talking about how the movement is dying because of the political maneuvering of Republicans. That is not killing, and cannot kill, the conservative movement (it just kills the conservative attachment to the party). Packer identifies two ways that conservatives can approach the challenge of getting the Republican party back in power – and I note the unspoken assumption that this is the only option for conservatives to have any political effect:

One is the purist version: Bush expanded the size of government and created huge deficits; allowed Republicans in Congress to fatten lobbyists and stuff budgets full of earmarks; tried to foist democracy on a Muslim country; failed to secure the border; and thus won the justified wrath of the American people. This account—shared by Pat Buchanan, the columnist George F. Will, and many Republicans in Congress—has the appeal of asking relatively little of conservatives. They need only to repent of their sins, rid themselves of the neoconservatives who had agitated for the Iraq invasion, and return to first principles. Buchanan said, “The conservatives need to, in Maoist terms, go back to Yenan.”

The second version—call it reformist—is more painful, because it’s based on the recognition that, though Bush’s fatal incompetence and Rove’s shortsighted tactics hastened the conservative movement’s demise, they didn’t cause it. In this view, conservatism has a more serious problem than self-betrayal: a doctrinaire failure to adapt to new circumstances, new problems. Instead of heading back to Yenan to regroup, conservatives will have to spend some years or even decades wandering across a bleak political landscape of losing campaigns and rebranding efforts and earnest policy retreats, much as liberals did after 1968, before they can hope to reestablish dominance.

I would suggest that the conservative movement does not need to do anything about the purist approach because the movement has not strayed from those principles – they lost influence within the Republican party. Any party which will promote the conservative vision of good government will have the political backing of conservatives – whether that alone is sufficient to gain political power is a question for a separate post.

Packer says:

Conservatives knew how to win elections; however, they turned out not to be very interested in governing.

It would be more accurate to say

Republicans knew how to win elections with conservative rhetoric; however, they turned out not to be very interested in governing according to conservative principles.

The reformist approach is really not an issue for the conservative movement to address – it is an issue for the Republican party to address. It is a sure bet that until they address this issue of adapting to new circumstances they will “spend some years or even decades wandering across a bleak political landscape of losing campaigns and rebranding efforts and earnest policy retreats” before they are able to regain any consistent political power. Essentially, until this problem is addressed the Republican are likely to be the opposition party just as the Democrats have largely been the opposition party since 1980. (The failures of the 2006 Democratic congress suggest that the Democrats still identify as anti-Bush more than pro-anything much like the Republicans lost much of their identity with the downfall of communist Eastern Europe. 2010 and 2012 are going to be races between the parties to see which can articulate a cogent political philosophy first – and the Democrats seem to have a head start in that process.)

The Republican party gained power by adopting and later exploiting conservative rhetoric but we have not really had conservatives in power since 1988 – just a lot of Bushes and Clintons. In 1988 many people assumed that Bush 41 would be conservative as Reagan had been. He did not pretend to be conservative so he lost in 1992 as an incumbent. In 2000 Bush 43 beat a sitting Vice President because he did pretend to be conservative. The elections of 1992 and 1996, when there was no candidate who used really conservative rhetoric, could not be decided by the polarizing tactics that have been employed by Republicans under the cover of conservative rhetoric since the 1960s. 2008 is likely to shape up the same way because, as David Brooks said to Packer:

“McCain, crucially, missed the sixties, and in some ways he’s a pre-sixties figure. He and Obama don’t resonate with the sixties at all.”

Is conservatism dying? I don’t think so. I believe that it is as alive as it ever was (which was always much less alive than the party it informed) – the only real change is that the movement is becoming almost completely disattached from a particular political vehicle. The conservative movement, like any social movement, is more than political maneuvering (unlike a simple political party which may well be nothing more than political maneuvering) and it is alive to the degree that the principles of conservatism are being passed to a new generation. How much those principles are being passed on is anybody’s guess. Whether the movement will gain political power is also an open-ended question. But to say that its dying because it is not connected with a political party is inaccurate. The truth is that the party is dying until it can regain its identity or adopt a new ideological identity.

Categories
National politics

Keeping the Race Alive

Ever since Romney ended his bid for the Republican nomination I have seen much commentary on how Huckabee would need to end his bid soon to preserve his chances at being selected as the VP on the McCain ticket. I have seen one article suggesting the reverse. The logic is interesting and plausible:

How can a longer primary campaign good for Mr. McCain? So long as it’s civil, it keeps him in the news as a winner in Republican primaries, and provides a forum for Mr. McCain to continue traveling the country and spreading his message in a relaxed, unthreatening political environment. Think of it as the heavyweight boxing champion drawing TV coverage for workouts with his sparring partner. . .

And why would Mike Huckabee want to run such a friendly campaign? Because he knows all this, and would like to spend the next few weeks building the case for his selection as John McCain’s vice presidential nominee.

Categories
National politics

The Real Standings

I can’t stand the way that the media has been talking up the Republican race is if it’s McCains to lose. The facts point to a race that is far from decided and less favorable to McCain than the news lets on. The current delegate counts are 97 for McCain and 92 for Romney with 1191 needed to win the nomination. It’s also rather pitiful to read the professions of the Huckabee campaign that they are in a close race with the front runners – they have 29 delegates.

Of the 8 nominating contests so far the results for each of the 4 remaining candidates are:

  • McCain
    • 3 wins
    • two 2nd place finishes
    • one each of 3rd, 4th, and 6th place
    • delegates from 5 of the states
  • Romney
    • 4 wins
    • three 2nd place finishes
    • one 4th place
    • delegates from 6 of the states
  • Huckabee
    • 1 win
    • one 2nd place finish
    • two 3rds, three 4ths, and one 5th place finish
    • delegates from 5 of the states
  • Paul
    • one each of 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 7th place
    • four 5th place finishes
    • delegates from 2 of the states

Don’t be fooled by the message of the media – Romney has every bit as good a chance at the nomination as McCain if not better. And don’t be fooled by the bravado of Huckabee – his best opportunity is to be a spoiler for Romney (those who still support him are unlikely to support McCain).

Categories
culture politics

Right Thinking

Townhall is not a place I have linked to before because much of what I see there is more partisan than I would care to pass along. Surprisingly today there are two articles there that give me hope that there are still active Republicans who stand for something besides being not Democrats (there are also Democrats who are more than not Republican, but I discovered that a while back).

In the first column, the author rejects the most famous sound bite of the second Republican Presidential debate where the media latched on to the sound bite from Rudy Giuliani and allowed him to twist the words of Ron Paul about terrorism and 9/11 to the detriment of this less popular candidate. Ron Paul gave an insightful answer about the situation we are in but the media covered the sound bite response. Typical.

In the second column, the author reminds us what the Republican party used to be known for and what they claim to represent. By the time I was done with that I wanted to ask the current Republican party which is worse for our economy and our future generations – a spend and don’t tax leadership or a tax and spend leadership? The answer should be obvious. We need to be talking less about funding welfare and saving social security and more about helping people get off of welfare and helping them not be dependent on social security. More importantly we should be doing things to reduce the perceived need for such programs.

So my point is, it’s no wonder that things aren’t looking good for the GOP right now – their words (especially historically) and their actions are inconsistent. That is bound to inhibit people from trusting them even if they like their rhetoric. When people don’t trust them they are less likely to make an effort to vote for them.

Categories
politics

Good News for the G.O.P.

While I was just catching up on the news, I came across an article in the New York Times declaring that the rank and file memebers of the G.O.P. are not following the dictates of Karl Rove. I think that’s great news. I have thought many times that the Democratic Party seemed to have lost its way. I felt that they had very little to contribute outside of a constant cry of “Republicans are bad, just look at what Kink George is doing.” Lately I have begun to think that the Republican Party should lose their way since the way they seem to be leading the country is looking more and more like a path to self-destruction.

I am not talking about the war in Iraq, or the economy. I am talking about the “us vs. them” mentality. The Democrats seemed to be lacking an “us.” From the Democrats it felt like a “them vs. not them” mentality. Thankfully that looks like it might be changing. I just hope that one or both parties can come to something along the lines of “us and not us” where there is no assumption that “anyone who does not agree with us is anti-American (or stupid, or evil, or any other slanderous generalization).” The parties should stand for something so that I can respect them even if I disagree with them.

With the issue of abortion, most people talk about “pro-life vs pro-choice”. Both sides seem to be for something. Unfortunately, I have heard ardent supporters of each side of the debate talk about “pro-choice vs anti-choice” or “pro-life vs anti-life.” Those are both “us righteous crusaders for truth, justice, and the American way vs those stupid, communist, fascist, devil worshiping, neo-something-or-other social lepers” types of mentalities. They are not constructive, but they are passionate. I don’t mind passionate, but I would hope to have more constructive attitudes come to the forefront of both parties so that we can have some lively national debate on issues, and at the end of the day we still make things happen.