Congratulations to Barack Obama – hands down the best candidate among the Democrats. This is what all the democratic contests should look like.
Tag: parties
I found it interesting to read what Michael Barone had to say about politicians who were successful as they presented a narrative of where the country was an what it needed to move forward. Of our current parties and candidates he says:
Neither party is presenting a narrative, as the Roosevelts and Reagan did, that takes due note of America’s great strengths and achievements. Each seems to take the course, easier in a time of polarized politics, of lambasting the opposition.
That got me wondering, what kind of a narrative would be successful today – and will any candidate present such a narrative? I think I might take a look at the various candidates again for myself to see if there are narratives from their campaigns that Mr. Barone is missing. Does anyone see a candidate who is presenting what they feel is a compelling narrative?
I have written previously about my views on social conservatives abandoning the party in 2008 if the Republican nominee is Rudy Giuliani. I have been interested in the various articles about why they would, or wouldn’t go through with that threat. Some of the people suggesting that this is a bluff, or a poor choice, show that they do not really understand the people who are set against Giuliani. I have read some columnists who think that this is just a childish stunt. Others believe that the social conservatives have been given short-shrift in the GOP coalition and are not surprised by their desire to flex their muscles.
I argued that the social conservatives needed to support a single candidate rather than just opposing a single candidate. It has been nice to see others who feel the same way. Another convincing suggestion for social conservatives is that they need to work harder at winning the hearts and minds of other factions of the GOP coalition.
Based on what I am hearing I would bet on one of four candidates getting the Republican nomination: Rudy Giuliani – if the social conservatives don’t coalesce around another candidate, Mitt Romney – if they are really afraid of Rudy, Mike Huckabee – if they just can’t bring themselves to back a Latter Day Saint, or Ron Paul – if his extremely committed and growing core of followers can break through to mainstream voters (meaning those who are more laid back about their politics and thus are less likely to go seeking a candidate who is not at the top of the MSM listing of candidates).
Because I don’t believe that social conservative leaders are bluffing about Giuliani, I predict that all of the other Republicans have a better shot in the general election that Rudy does.
Thinking about the idea of a split in the GOP makes me wonder about how we got where we are. Why is the leading candidate for the party unpalatable for a large segment of the party base? I am reminded that “parties are simply alliances of groups that can put aside their differences sufficiently to focus on a few areas where they mostly agree.” Considering that it is not so surprising that the fiscal conservatives are ready to back Giuliani after years of being out-shouted within the party by the social conservatives.
The real dynamic of the nomination process is that the Democrats are united in their desire for a large government that will protect us from negative consequences with social programs to help us go to school, pay for necessities when we lose jobs, ensure access to health care services, legislating social tolerance, and promote international good will by throwing money at the problems plaguing poor nations. Social conservatives have been content – even excited – with a large government that will protect us from change by spending money to wage war against radical Islam around the world, building fences at our borders, listening in to our private conversations in case someone expresses an idea they deem dangerous, and regulating our public conversation against indecency. There is a third group who wants less government and more personal responsibility – including the possibility of suffering the consequences of poor social or financial choices. This group is so tired of being pushed to the side that they are willing to settle on any candidate who will at least promise to keep the growth to a minimum.
The ability of this third group to make Giuliani the frontrunner is what has lead to the warning by social conservatives that they might not support Giuliani. After so long in power they seem to forget that this was a coalition. They don’t seem to care that Big Government is the Enemy of Freedom. They want to coerce the nation in to following their vision of what this nation should be and forget that their coercive tactics would lead them into this very trap.
I have been thinking about the comments by Bradley when I wrote about the primary election power struggle between the states and the parties. Last night the thought occurred to me that the parties could simply pick a new way of awarding delegates. They could set three dates on the primary calendar. Whatever states held primaries or caucuses on or before the first date would have 10% of all delegates allocated among them. States who held their primaries after the first date but before the second date would have 20% of the delegates split among them. States between the second and third dates would would split 30% of the delegates and states holding primaries after the third date would split the remaining 40% of delegates.
The parties could then invite states to participate in a given window based on population and/or a lottery but the states would then be allowed to set their primary dates wherever they chose. If we imagine that the first date for 2008 was February 4th then “Super Duper Tuesday” (or whatever it’s being called now) states would be competing for 20% of the delegates in choosing the party nominees. When states choose when to have their primaries they have to balance the value of being influential in the early stages against the larger pool of delegates to by split by those who come later.
Questions? Comments? Rebuttals?
Early in my political study I flirted with the ideas of libertarianism. I was highly disenchanted with the Republicans and skeptical of the chances that the Democrats could right their party which, at the time, lacked a specific direction. I had taken the worlds smallest political quiz and though my score varied at times I was consistently conservative on the economic scale so I was not a “Statist” (big government) but I had enough movement to score as a Republican, a Libertarian, or a Centrist. I have since concluded that part of the reason I scored as a Libertarian at times is that the quiz is made by Libertarians and the questions are worded so that if you are borderline you are likely to score as a Libertarian.
So why do I bring up this old information? Because I was surprised to learn about some other people who have traveled a similar path of considering Libertarianism. The difference is that Scott is much more articulate in stating Why I Am Not a Pure Libertarian. I think the explanation is beneficial for Libertarians or anyone who is exploring their own political leanings. (This also explains why I agree with Scott such a high percentage of the time.)
In explaining why Utah politics has become totally dominated by the Republicans the Deseret Spectacle only covered one half of the story. He covers the back room machinery of the Religious Right. It would be foolish to argue that this didn’t happen, or even that it was unrelated to our current unfortunate predicament. There is another side to this tale that should be told. Ignoring this half of the story could prevent Democrats from regaining their seat at the political table in Utah.
While the maneuvering on the right has been going on since “roughly 20, 25 years ago,” there was another contributing factor which began even earlier. Fully 75 years ago we had a president, who was a Democrat and who is still highly revered for pulling us through the Great Depression. During his tenure he established many government programs which grew our government to a size and scope that had previously been unimaginable in this country. Ezra Taft Benson published The Proper Role of Government in 1968 advocating smaller government. The positions he espoused are generally highly regarded in Utah, especially after 30 years ago when our economy was doing poorly as a result of our expanded government (after the economic growth of war had run its course). This made the social environment ripe for influence by conservative movements – that’s where the explanation of the Deseret Spectacle picks up the story.
If Democrats are to hope to regain a viable voice in Utah politics they must recognize that the image of moral relativism that has been plastered on them by the Jerry Falwell’s is the most obvious deterrent to becoming relevant in Utah, but possibly not the most damaging. They must find ways to tackle issues such as preserving the environment, improving education, and economic equality among our citizens without always turning to expanded government programs.
So long as Utah Democrats remain blind on this issue they will never talk themselves back into relevancy here. In fact, while they are busy shouting that their goals are not actually immoral, the Republicans are able to maintain power even while they are fiscally so liberal that they are alienating many who can see through the cheap label that the Democrats are fighting to remove. Unfortunately for those few, the Democrats do not appear to offer a more fiscally responsible alternative.
Categories
Only 18 Days Left
Karl Rove is leaving the Bush administration. This proves that dreams can come true. I would have liked to see this happen years ago, but I commented positively on the first reports that Rove had lost his iron grip on the GOP. I have always viewed his approach to politics as being destructive for society. I doubt that anybody who fills his vacancy could have a negative impact on the administration.
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
Balanced Government
I have long believed that Utah needs balanced government. I have made most of the same arguments on this issue as were raised in that article. Having a single party in power does not generally provide the give-and-take, compromise-and-entertain-new-ideas environment that is the strength of a democratic society. One of the problems that encourages the current dominant-party situation in this state is the blurring of the proper separation of state and federal government. (And you thought I was going to talk about church and state separation.) One of the major causes for this blurring is that the federal government has been given power in many areas that were once reserved to the states. The It’s-a-Small-World mentality means that we think everything is local and we have to make our local decisions based on national implications.
The Utah County Democratic Party tried to make some distinction between different spheres of government last year by adopting a platform that was less like the platform of the Democratic National Committee and more closely aligned to the mainstream voters of this very conservative region. Now they face some resistance from local democrats who are more in favor of the national platform. In a place where the other party has more than 10 times the number of members your party has the initial move makes sense, but what does that imply about the relationship between the national party and the county party? How far from the national platform can you go and still retain the party name?
I don’t know the answer, but I do know that the idea that there should be no correlation between the platforms is as useless as the idea that there should be no variation between them. I hope that the balance here can be found so that Utah will have two viable parties throughout the state and not a ruling party and an opposition party such as we now have.