Charles E.F. Millard wrote a New York Post op-ed about the NY Republican Party that, with a few details changed, could have been written about the RI Republican Party…
New leadership is needed. [Former New York Republican Chairman Bill Powers] summed up the keys to me after last week’s bloodbath: “You have to have a plan,” and “you have to believe”….The leadership of Rhode Island’s GOP certainly seems to flunk both of Mr. Powers’ tests: they’re not organized (contrary to State Chairwoman Pat Morgan’s frighteningly bizarre statement from this week’s Providence Phoenix that “the state party is really stronger and better than it has ever been”) and they don’t believe in anything that they are willing to talk about.
When the people who control the podium fail to make the case for GOP principles for nearly a decade running, don’t be surprised when voters, donors and activists are unpersuaded.
John Holmes, former state Republican chair, has recently suggested that the state Republican party should be focused on than lowering taxes and economic development. But those are platitudes. Anyone can run on those ideas. And anyone has. As Millard points out…
In this last election, [New York Democratic Governor-Elect Eliot Spitzer] espoused lower taxes and the reform of special-interest Albany.As the example of Mr. Spitzer shows, Northeast liberal Republicans need to stop looking to external boogeymen (i.e. Southern conservatives) to explain their failure and accept that their near-extinction in the political arena is the result of their failure to differentiate themselves from Northeastern liberal Democrats. [Open full post]
Senator Reed’s “four-point plan” for resolving the Iraq conflict is reasonable — even if short on practical methodology — but he undermines his entire strategy with his statement of principle:
Now the president needs to take the next step and make it clear to the Iraqis that our military presence is not open-ended and we will begin redeploying our forces from Iraq as quickly as possible. …
If President Bush cannot secure these basic commitments from the Iraqis, then the logic of keeping over 144,000 American troops in Iraq is suspect.
This approach is doomed to failure for two reasons:
- It ensures that the insurgents and terrorists understand that they don’t actually have to defeat the combined military force of the United States and the young representative government of Iraq, but merely to make things sufficiently difficult that the United States will abandon the ally that it has created.
- It creates an environment in which the safest strategy for would-be power players in the new government is to hedge their bets. If the United States is threatening to retreat, then Iraqi government officials have to be prepared for the possibility that one of the factions — one of the “militias” — may soon be calling the shots.
I wouldn’t presume to offer military strategies, but as a matter of basic approach, it seems to me that the message we want to send to Iraq’s insurgents and government alike is that we are not going anywhere and may very well rewrite the rules to suite our own needs. The result of our losing patience has to be a stronger hand, not a weaker backbone.
[Open full post]A piece by Bernard F. Sullivan in Tuesday’s Providence Journal brings to light an interesting paradox. On the one hand, it’s difficult to fathom that a man with such apparent deficiency in categorical comprehension could have ever been a regional editor for a major newspaper. On the other, his expressed concept of government enables insight into the thought processes of some secularists: they don’t necessarily have an especially restrictive view of “separation of church and state”; rather, they simply can’t understand that church and state have distinct functions and different rules of operation. Consider:
There is perhaps no institution more authoritarian and autocratic than the Roman Catholic Church. Yet its leaders were willing to cozy up to pols in a desperate attempt to end gay marriages on a popular vote. Then, when the vote threatened to go against their canonical stance, as in the case of women priests, they scurried back to the mountain of magisterial intransigence and, hoping for a collective short memory on the part of the congregation, said church policies are not determined by popular vote.
So, if “archdiocesan officials” explain that “church policies are not determined by popular vote,” they must behave as if state policies are not determined by popular vote, either, but rather accept the determination of the state’s judicial hierarchy. If they insist on attempting to leverage democracy to shape government policy in accordance with their religious beliefs, then they must subject their religious beliefs to the democratic process. It isn’t possible, in this civic model, for a religious organization to maintain that God’s instructions are not available for popular revision, but that human laws are.
Curiously, Sullivan doesn’t give any indication that he believes that those human laws ought to be determined through a democratic process when once the modern interpreters of old government texts have issued their ruling. Perhaps it isn’t so much authoritarianism that bothers him as disagreement.
Given my suspicions, I won’t bother addressing his crack that “maybe diocesan church leaders might get lathered up about street killings, poverty, violence, homelessness, child hunger and lack of adequate health care.” The notion that people could sincerely believe that fortifying traditional marriage could be central to addressing all of those problems would surely be too much for him to bear, and perhaps to understand.
Before the RI GOP can hope to make political headway, its members must identify what they really stand for, which is something that I wrote about in my last piece. Next, they must turn to the hard work of party building, which means developing and funding candidates. It is here that a fundamental reprioritization needs to be made by both the party and those who would like to seek political office with an “R” next to their names.
It’s been my impression that Rhode Island Republicans are too enamored with running for the big-name positions–Governor, U.S. Congress, Mayor–and not so much into vying for the local political billets like Town Council, School Committee, or State Legislature. In other words, if RI politics were a buffet table, too many GOP candidates pass right over the meat and potatoes and head for the filet mignon. The problem is, there are many more meat-and-potatoes entrées, and they are cheaper and easier to get!
Heck, even the consummate filet mignon politician–Senator Lincoln Chafee–realized that you have to begin your political diet by scarfing down some SOS. He was a Warwick City Councilman before becoming Mayor of Warwick. Then he was appointed and re-elected to the Senate.
I’m not necessarily arguing against running for the big offices right out of the gate. Governor Carcieri was a political unknown, but he had the ability to fund himself. Through hard work and perseverance–and despite the doubts of the RIGOP establishment–he won the Governor’s race twice. For that matter, Mayor Laffey has also been a “self-funder.” Additionally, his tenure as Mayor also made him a recognizable political personality (for good and ill) in his Senate run. (Tangential point: It’s interesting that two of the most successful members of the RIGOP today were/are considered “outsiders” by the RIGOP establishment.) While some may argue that Mayor Laffey should have “settled” for a state-level office, he had enough financial juice and name recognition to make a viable run for a high-profile office.
However, both the Governor and Mayor Laffey are the exceptions and, along with Senator Chafee, are evidence of part of a different, but related, problem within the RI GOP: an over-reliance on well-moneyed individuals to self-fund their own campaigns and bring everyone lower on the ticket along for the ride. The average GOP candidate–the one who’s eating SOS–needs support from the state party to be able to finance a run for Town Council or State Rep. It’s all fine and dandy to argue (hope?) that top-o’-the-ticket coattails can make up for lack of cash, but I haven’t seen that translate into political success for the RI GOP. Cash would work better.
Look, I don’t have a financial background nor any real idea as to the mechanics of political fund-raising. “I’m an idea man.” As such, I have to think that if the RI GOP could offer attractive candidates, the money would come. Nonetheless, I also realize that any organization needs an effective leader. Yesterday, I pointed to the discussion that Dan Yorke was having about the RI GOP in which he proposed that they should impose the death penalty on themselves. End the misery now. Scorch the earth so that something new can grow in a few years. Yorke’s premise is that there is no high-profile leader who is willing or able to step up and make the changes necessary for the RI GOP to become a truly viable political entity. Therefore, get the bad apples (according to Yorke, Bernie Jackvony and John Holmes) out by knocking their legs out from under them.
Perhaps he’s right, and as I said, while I recognize the need for good leadership in any organization, parties and movements also must be built from the bottom up. The rank and file can reform the party, if they put their minds to it. No matter who becomes the leader of the RIGOP, or how they get there, it’s my belief that–to really change the political equation in this state–he or she must recruit effective candidates to run in local elections.
So it seems to me that the path to success lays between having a top down and a bottom up party. Of necessity, the RI GOP still has to be an organizationally top-down party, with smart, effective (and well-connected) leadership. However, the implementation of a sound political agenda–real party building–can only be done starting from the bottom of the ticket and working up.
Some Republicans, such as Warwick Mayor Scott Avedesian, have recognized this and worked their way through lower political offices to upper. Sue Stenhouse, though she lost, is another good example (I keep coming back to Warwick, don’t I?) of a candidate with experience on the Warwick City Council who sought a higher office.
Starting small acquaints a candidate with political and governmental processes. More importantly, it also acquaints them with the voters. Thus, it gives them something that most don’t have the money to buy: name recognition. Like it or not, it isn’t the ideas that first attract RI voters to particular candidates, it’s how well they know and like them. All politics may be local, but in Rhode Island, it’s also personal. More on that next time.
So, according to a new poll:
While voters in Election Day surveys said corruption and scandal in Congress were among the most important factors in their vote, the postelection poll indicated 37 percent of all adults said the war in Iraq should be at the top of the congressional agenda during the next two years. Nevertheless, 57 percent of all adults in the AP-Ipsos poll said Democrats do not have a plan for Iraq; 29 percent said they do.
That finding strikes at the heart of a Democratic dilemma. The party has been of one voice in criticizing President Bush’s strategy for the war but has been more equivocal on how to move in a different direction.
Democrats such as Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania want a fixed deadline to pull all troops out of the country. Other Democrats, including some party leaders, have voiced support for a staggered withdrawal that demands greater responsibility from the Iraqis.
I like that…”equivocal.” Sheesh. Anyway, let me see if I’ve got this straight. For a couple years now the President has been criticized by many Democrats for either not having a plan or having the wrong plan. Now, the average American voter is telling us that Iraq is the most important task facing a Congress led by the Democrat party, but also admits that they don’t think that the new leaders in Congress have a plan.
And how is that tactic of voting out the GOP because of “corruption and scandal” working out? Well, apparently, the new House Majority leader isn’t exactly squeeky clean. Writes the Wall Street Journal’s John Fund:
House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi’s endorsement of Rep. John Murtha for majority leader, the No. 2 position in the Democratic leaderhsip, has roiled her caucus. “She will ensure that they [Mr. Murtha and his allies] win. This is hardball politics,” Rep. Jim Moran, a top Murtha ally, told the Hill, a congressional newspaper. “We are entering an era where when the speaker instructs you what to do, you do it.”
But several members are privately aghast that Mr. Murtha, a pork-barreling opponent of most House ethics reforms, could become the second most visible symbol of the new Democratic rule. “We are supposed to change business as usual, not put the fox in charge of the henhouse,” one Democratic member told me. “It’s not just the Abscam scandal of the 1980s that he barely dodged, he’s a disaster waiting to happen because of his current behavior,” another told me.
By no means is this the only such story. Ruth Marcus at the Washington Post also wrote about Murtha (read ’em both). But it’s not just Murtha…apparently Speaker-Elect Pelosi also thinks having an impeached judge running the House Intelligence committee is a good idea. Marcus wrote about this one, too:
…Nancy Pelosi’s first test as speaker will arrive long before the 110th Congress convenes. Her choice to head the House intelligence committee — unlike other House committees, this one is left entirely up to the party leadership — will speak volumes about whether a Speaker Pelosi will be able to resist a return to paint-by-numbers Democratic Party interest-group politics as usual.
Pelosi is in a box of her own devising. The panel’s ranking Democrat is her fellow Californian Jane Harman — smart and hardworking but also abrasive, ambitious and, in Pelosi’s estimation, insufficiently partisan on the committee. So Pelosi, once the intelligence panel’s ranking Democrat herself, has made clear that she doesn’t intend to name Harman to the chairmanship.
The wrong decision, in my view, but one that’s magnified by the unfortunate fact that next in line is Florida Rep. Alcee Hastings. In 1989, after being acquitted in a criminal trial, Hastings was stripped of his position as a federal judge — impeached by the House in which he now serves and convicted by the Senate — for conspiring to extort a $150,000 bribe in a case before him, repeatedly lying about it under oath and manufacturing evidence at his trial.
How’s that vote for “change” looking now?
UPDATE: (Via Instapundit) Meanwhile, the GOP has apparently learned a lesson and decided that Trent Lott should help lead them into the future. Brilliant. And Allahpundit points to this John Miller piece that explains why the GOP dumped Lott in the first place. Dean Barnett is right: “Is it just me, or is it becoming increasingly apparent that the Republicans and Democrats are determined to engage in a two year dumb-off?”
According to John E. Mulligan on the Projo’s Political Scene blog, committee assignments have been determined for the 110th Congress.
Senator-elect Sheldon Whitehouse has received seats on…
- Environment and Public Works
- Judiciary
- Select Committee on Intelligence
- Budget
Senator Jack Reed’s committee assignments are…
- Appropriations
- Armed Services
- Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
- Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
Megan McArdle of Asymmetrical Information challenges emerging conventional wisdom that using emergency rooms for routine medical care is a significant contributor to rising healthcare costs (h/t Instapundit)…
It doesn’t seem to me that emergency room care for routine ailments is actually more expensive to provide than clinical care; it’s just that hospitals price it to cover the cost of dead, uninsured trauma patients and so forth. I don’t see how a triage nurse, a doctor, and a waiting room are more expensive to provide because they’re on the first floor than they would be on the fifth. But perhaps I’m missing something there.Agree or disagree? [Open full post]
A few days ago, I posted Rebuilding the RI GOP Part I: Forming a Political Philosophy. I’m still working on a follow up post, but Dan Yorke–inspired by an Ed Achorn column that Yorke characterizes as having been written about a million times already–has a rather provocative proposal of his own: dismantle it. I believe Yorke’s premise is that there simply is neither an effective leader who will/can step forward to rebuild the existing GOP nor will the current hierarchy go away. Yorke avers that too many in the RIGOP leadership are hopelessly pathetic, “Me too” and in bed with Democrats, that there is no hope to really change it. So Yorke thinks that a 40 year walk in the desert is called for (actually, about 5 years). However, Yorke’s premise relies heavily on the Governor calling for the death penalty for the RIGOP. That won’t happen. It certainly sounds extreme and is highly, highly, highly unlikely. But I suppose it’s an option.
[Open full post]According to an unbylined story in today’s Projo, as was the case last year, a budget shortfall for Rhode Island is being projected for this fiscal year…
The state’s budget situation looks bleak, real bleak.As was also the case last year, our neighbors in Massachusetts and Connecticut are not experiencing similar crises. The State Comptroller of Connecticut is projecting a surplus for for fiscal year 2007?
The amount of cash flowing into the state’s coffers this year is estimated to fall $74.2 million short of previous predictions, causing a major headache for all branches of state government.
To further exacerbate the problem, a report due out later this week is expected to show that department spending is far above what has been budgeted. Those added expenses could push the current year deficit well above $100 million, according to state Budget Officer Rosemary Booth Gallogly.
State Comptroller Nancy Wyman today projected the state will end the 2007 fiscal year with a budget surplus of $266.4 million.And while Massachusetts does not provide a comprehensive monthly forecast including both revenues and spending like Connecticut does, according to the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, as of October’s collections, revenue collection by Massachusetts is very slightly ahead (about $16,000,000 out of a total of $18,900,000,000) of what was anticipated.
The estimated surplus increased by $53.5 million over the last month. That growth was mainly due to higher-than-expected revenue from the income tax, especially the capital gains portion of the tax related to investors’ robust returns from the financial markets. Modest job growth of about 1,700 positions in September also produced higher revenue from the payroll-withholding portion of the tax.
Unsurprisingly, the fundamental problem facing Rhode Island has not changed from a year ago…
The fact that our neighbors doing well shows that the Rhode Island budget shortfall is not a problem created by implacable macroeconomic forces spiraling out of control; economic conditions in Rhode Island are similar to economic conditions in Massachusetts and Connecticut.[Open full post]
Rhode Island’s problems are rooted in poor fiscal management and irrational spending policies. They cannot be solved by giving even more money to the government that created this mess in the first place.
National Review isn’t exactly considered the journal of record for the Ivy League. (William F. Buckley once famously commented that he would “rather be governed by the first 2000 names in the Boston phone book than by the 2000 members of the faculty of Harvard University”). However, last week’s dead tree edition of NR contained a line that may catch some folks a few years (or decades) removed from the college experience by surprise…
Columbia has been the cool school in the Ivy League for a while now, taking that title from Brown…Is it really true, or is NR guilty of propagating a bit of New York hype here? [Open full post]