Category Archives: Parties

‘… the centre cannot hold… while the worst are full of passionate intensity.’

Today I pulled from my bookshelf a volume of William Butler Yeats, which I’ve had since college. Someone had recently mentioned the source of the phrase “no country for old men,” and I wanted to look it up.

Eventually, as I browsed, my eyes fell on this:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

W. B. Yeats

Which is a pretty good evocation of what it feels like to be an UnPartisan these days.

And it took me back to what I read in the paper this morning, a story about how SC Republicans (who “are full of passionate intensity”) are reconciling themselves to the man who had turned out to be their best — the one who is widely known to “lack all conviction.”

I was dismayed throughout the piece. First, there was this quote from Tom Davis — someone I’ve always seen, in person, as a reasonable man, but who continually takes unreasonable positions:

Davis, who backed U.S. Rep. Ron Paul for president in the state’s January GOP primary, now has some good things to say about Romney. But his words sound as much like a warning as an endorsement.

“If he frames the debate between President Obama’s agenda of an ever-growing and more powerful government versus faith in free markets and individual liberty, I think he’s got a good chance of winning,” said Davis, a lawyer in Beaufort. “If he doesn’t draw the line that sharply and tries to tack toward the center, then I think it will be very difficult.”

In other words, my friend Tom is saying that if Romney does anything to make himself more appealing to nonpartisans like me, then people like Tom won’t support him.

This is distressing. It’s distressing that Tom actually seems to believe that the president’s agenda, rather than being the good of the country, is “an ever-growing and more powerful government,” and that he actually doesn’t believe in “individual liberty.” The first is mere hyperbole; the second completely delegitimizes the president, for what American doesn’t believe in liberty?

But this is mild stuff. Tom is the very soul of moderation compared to GOP Chair Chad Connelly:

“He’s a better candidate than he was a year ago. He’s able to articulate all the reasons we need to make sure Obama is just the worst one-term president ever.”…

“When Gov. Romney is the eventual nominee, (those voters) will excited because they’re so disgusted at what Obama has done, trashing the Constitution and pushing Obamacare down our throats,” Connelly predicted.

What?!? “Worst… president ever?” “Disgusted?” “Trashing the Constitution?” “Pushing Obamacare [legislation shaped and legally passed by the Congress) down our throats?”

You would think the leader of our country were Caligula. There has never been a president of the United States who deserved that sort of language, although we’ve had some sorry ones. Yes, I know Chad is the head of a party, but still — I’ve sat and talked pleasantly with him. He’s not a raving lunatic. Yet he speaks as though he’s lost all sense of proportion. This is the way people in the mainstream of the major parties speak these days.

To end on a positive note, I was struck by the language used by Tea Party Freshman Congressman Jeff Duncan:

“Gov. Romney’s policies would be a clear departure from the dubious tactics of the Obama administration,” said Duncan, who hasn’t endorsed Romney or any other Republican candidate.

“I’m confident that Gov. Romney can win over the American people on the promise of limited government, defending individual liberties and a return to common-sense solutions to our country’s biggest problems,” Duncan said.

See, now? That’s the way civilized men speak of others with whom they disagree. “Dubious tactics.” That says one disagrees with the man’s ideas (while at the same time, admitting that the other man could be right, since you are merely calling his approach “dubious”), but one’s sense of proportion is still intact.

Sad, isn’t it, that such rational speech stands out so starkly these days?

Rove says SC’s a toss-up? Is this a typo, or what?

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I think maybe the partisans at both ends have totally lost their minds now. I just got this from Dick Harpootlian:

President Barack Obama is going to win South Carolina.

You don’t believe it? Would you believe the Prince of Darkness Karl Rove?

Well click here and read his latest poll calling South Carolina a “toss up.” So even the biggest Republican propagandist in the country has to admit Barack Obama CAN win South Carolina this fall.

So help us make Karl Rove’s nightmare come true and click here to volunteer. President Obama CAN win, but only if you help. Just do it.

Hey, anything can happen, but if you’re talking probabilities… no way.

Here’s the original Rove info to which Harpootlian refers, but it doesn’t answer the question: What is the basis for putting SC in the “toss-up” column?

If anyone knows, please share.

So long to Blue Dogs and GOP moderates

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There’s a good piece over at CNN.com by David Gergen and Michael Zuckerman detailing, and decrying, our continued slide into extreme-partisan gridlock.

Basically, it takes note of some the latest developments in this abhorrent trend:

One can see these trends in harsher relief amid campaigns for the Senate and House. Olympia Snowe, a moderate and much-beloved GOP senator from Maine facing her first primary challenge, is retiring because of a lack of bipartisanship and mechanisms to find “common ground.”

Sens. Richard Lugar and Orrin Hatch — both stalwarts of the GOP who have committed apostasy by trying to work across party lines — face primaries this season that imperil their survival: A poll Thursday morning found Lugar down 5 points to a tea party-backed challenger in Indiana, and Hatch failed to secure a 60% supermajority at his party’s convention in Utah, sending his race to a primary. Only two years ago in Utah, another stalwart Republican who had worked with Democrats, Bob Bennett, was deposed by an ideologically purer primary challenger.

In the House, meanwhile, the once-robust cadre of “Blue Dog Democrats” — moderate to conservative members of the liberal party — has been winnowed out, with two more members (Reps. Jason Altmire and Tim Holden of Pennsylvania) defeated in primaries this past Tuesday by opponents from their left flanks.

As of 2010, there were as many as 54 Blue Dogs, but the midterms knocked their caucus down to 26. With retirements and primaries, that number will probably be well below 20 by next January — an effect that further turns Democrats into the party of the left…

Are there any good guys left? Yes there, are, but they are few:

So it’s crucial to bolster the men and women of courage in politics: the ones who can act as ambassadors between these increasingly dug-in parties and who can kindle that small flame of trust that has almost gone out. Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee) and Mark Warner (D-Virginia) and a handful of others, for example, have launched laudable work on this count in the Senate, pulling together small, quiet dinners with legislators from both sides of the aisle who are strong in principles but equally strong in their commitment to moving the ball forward for the country…

I’ve always liked Lamar, ever since I covered him running for governor back in 1978.

Ott calls for ‘real comprehensive tax reform’

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Sort of following up on the subject of my last post, I share this release that came in a few minutes ago:

Ott Calls for Real Comprehensive Tax Reform

Columbia, SC – House Democrats voted against a Republican plan on Thursday that raised sales taxes by over $12 million on parks, energy efficient home products, postage, zoos, trains, and cargo vessels as well as many others. Minority Leader Harry Ott released the following statement in response to the vote:

“House Democrats have been advocating for comprehensive tax reform for over ten years. This is not even close to tax reform. These are tax increases. Raising taxes is the last thing we should be doing in this economy. This bill doesn’t even begin to address the real problems with our flawed tax code in South Carolina. This was simply a bill that was passed so that House Republicans could go home and say they voted for tax reform. It’s time to stop playing politics and pass real comprehensive tax reform.”

####

Oh, yeah, Democrats? Well, I’ve been calling for comprehensive tax reform for more than 20 years, so don’t be putting on airs. (And even though I still haven’t gotten what I’ve pushed for, my calling for it is just as meaningful as you calling for it, because Democrats in the House don’t have a snowball’s chance of affecting that body’s agenda, especially not on anything this big.)

But you’re right. In all that time, I’ve never seen anything that looked like it actually come close to passage.

In fairness to you Dems, I will say that the closest we did come was when then-Ways and Means Chair Billy Boan led a study group that came up with a pretty good report after the legislative session of 1994, making proposals that would indeed have looked like comprehensive reform.

But before lawmakers could come back in January 1995, the Republicans had taken over the House, and all they wanted to do to taxes was cut them and cut them some more, with no thought given to the overall system.

Consequently, while there have been a number of special committees charged with drafting comprehensive reform since then (but none that looked as good as what Boan’s group came up with), they have all died before getting very far in the process.

And thanks to legislative tinkering here and there (pretty much all of them cuts aimed at pandering to this or that constituency, rather than trying to come up with a smarter and fairer system), our tax system is far, FAR more out of whack than it was when I started calling for reform. Termites have chewed through two, and to a certain extent all three, of the legs of the stool.

One thing seems sure — you won’t get “change” of any kind with Mitt Romney

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This morning on the radio, I heard a discussion of what a challenge Obama has in his re-election effort getting young people to back him they way they did in 2008.

Those young people, the argument went, wanted “hope” and “change,” and didn’t get enough of it.

I can see how that might have the effect of dampening enthusiasm, perhaps even of suppressing turnout.

What I don’t see it doing is translating to support for Romney. Unless these young folks really delude themselves, or unless the change they want is of a rightward bent — in which case, they’re still deluding themselves.

And most of us know this. It’s why the GOP base went running to everyone else they could think of before settling on Romney — they knew he wasn’t a True Believer on the kind of change THEY wanted.

And I knew it, which was why I saw him as the most palatable candidate in the field — the real conservative. Romney is a manager. He wants to manage the nation to prosperity. And maybe he can do that. But he’s not a revolutionary, or a counter-revolutionary. He’s a manager.

Now you might throw at me various statements that he’s made or positions he’s taken that contradict that, to which I’ll say, Right. And he’s also the father of Obamacare, but you don’t see him acting like it, do you? As you may have noted, his positioning is somewhat… flexible… based on what he thinks is needed to get the job done at a given time.

I backed Romney — reluctantly — because I didn’t like the kind of “change” that the GOP field was offering this time around. Repealing Obamacare. Endangering the full faith and credit of the United States by absolutely insisting that budget cuts not be accompanied by any kind of tax increases. I didn’t want any of that stuff.

When McCain and Obama ran four years ago, there were changes I looked forward to with each. I believed McCain would manage the War on Terror much better than Bush had. I knew he had the courage to take on things like comprehensive immigration reform. With Obama, while being reasonably certain that he would NOT institute the kinds of national security changes his base hoped for (and I was right — in fact, he has pursued the war with a stronger hand than Bush, and gotten away with it) and he just might give us meaningful health care reform. I even sorta had hopes for a rational energy policy.

But Romney’s virtue, to me, is that he does not represent the kind of change that his party has stood for since 2010 (or perhaps I should say, since the day after Election Day 2008, which seems to be the moment that party went off the rails). That’s a good thing.

I still don’t understand how ANYONE was fooled by John Edwards, at any point in time

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Here is an explanation by one accomplished professional (Walter Shapiro) who was completely taken in. Excerpts:

About three weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, my wife, Meryl Gordon, and I had an off-the-record dinner with John and Elizabeth Edwards at the Washington restaurant Olives. The dinner was at the blurry intersection of Washington life—ostensibly social (Meryl had bonded with Elizabeth after writing an Elle magazine profile of her husband in 2001) but at its core professional (I was a columnist for USA Today and Edwards had White House dreams). Everyone was in a shell-shocked daze after the terrorist attacks, but my only clear memory of that dinner was Edwards’ palpable dislike for John Kerry, an obvious rival for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination.

That was the beginning of a political-journalistic courtship that now makes me cringe. With Edwards on trial in North Carolina on charges of violating federal campaign-finance laws—after the disgrace of being caught with a mistress and denying being the father of her baby—I wish I had befriended a comparatively more honorable political figure like Eliot Spitzer or Mark Sanford…

In hindsight, I feel like the jaded city slicker, bristling with self-confidence that he can never be fooled, who ends up hoodwinked by the smiling rural Southern confidence man. Please understand: I did not deliberately put a thumb on the scale when I wrote about Edwards. It was more that I was convinced by Edwards’ sincerity when he talked passionately about poverty and the Two Americas. And I especially believed (because I spent so much time with Elizabeth) the romantic myth of the Edwards marriage.

Many Edwards insiders from the 2004 campaign say the vice-presidential nomination (bestowed by, yes, John Kerry) changed him. The entourage, the plane, the Secret Service detail and the frenzy of a fall campaign all supposedly fueled Edwards’ self-importance and sense of entitlement. But as I struggle to understand my own entanglement with a scandal-scarred presidential contender, I wonder if this arbitrary division between pre-veep Edwards and post-veep Edwards is too glib.

The danger signs and character flaws were always there, and I failed to notice them. I was certainly not alone in my blindness. David Axelrod, for example, was Edwards’ first media consultant during the 2004 primary campaign. Even after Axelrod drifted away to concentrate on a long-shot Senate race for a candidate named Barack Obama in Illinois, he returned for Edwards’ last stand in the Wisconsin primary. I recall running into Axelrod in the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee on primary day and hearing him say of Edwards, “He’ll be president someday.”…

Yes, the “danger signs and character flaws WERE always there,” and they stuck out a mile. While I hadn’t reached the point of completely dismissing him in print as a phony, you can see my uneasiness with him in this column from 2003:

… There are few things more unbecoming than a millionaire trial lawyer presenting himself to a crowd as the ultimate populist. Huey Long could pull it off; he had the common touch. So did George Wallace. But John Edwards is one of those “sleek-headed” men that Shakespeare wrote of in “Julius Caesar.” He may be lean, but he hath not the hungry look. Mr. Edwards is decidedly lacking in rough edges. Not even age can stick to him.
His entrance was predictably corny. Other speakers had unobtrusively climbed the back steps onto the platform. Mr. Edwards snuck around to the back of the crowd, then leaped out of his hiding place with a huge grin and his hand out, looking for all the world like he was surprised to find himself among all these supporters. He hand-shook his way through the audience to the podium, a la Bill Clinton , thereby signifying that he comes “from the people.” Watch for that shot in upcoming TV commercials.
His speech was laced with populist non-sequiturs. For instance, he went way over the top exhibiting his incredulity at Bush’s “jobless recovery,” chuckling with his audience at such an oxymoron – as though the current administration had invented the term. (A computer scan found the phrase 641 times in major news sources during calendar year 1993 ; so much for novelty.)…

(The point of the column was to say that some protesters who were there to picket Edwards were even worse than he was. But first I had to establish what I’d thought of him. This incident formed part of my better-known “phony” column in 2007, in which I particularly concentrated on a detail I had not used in this piece — because it involved such a subjective impression that I didn’t have the confidence to attach importance to it until I’d had more experience with him.)

I’m not smug for having been put off, from the first time I saw him in person, by what seems to have taken in others. I’m just surprised that they didn’t see it, too.

Boogity, Boogity, Boogity, Amen (the cover)

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This post is a ripoff of a post by Burl Burlingame over at his Honolulu Agonizer blog, headlined “Great Songs Are Inevitably Covered.”

I owe him a debt of gratitude because, while I had heard of the “Greatest NASCAR prayer ever,” I had never bothered to listen to it. It’s… remarkable. That is to say, it’s remarkable to me as a Catholic. Maybe you protestants pray like this all the time. But I doubt it. I went to my cousin Jason’s church for Easter Vigil this year, and there was nothing like this.

The original prayer was actually like this. The version above has been “songified” by The Gregory Brothers. I don’t know who they are, but they definitely rendered the pastor’s effort more awesome.

Here is some bare-bones explanation of the prayer, posted on HuffPost last July:

Prior to Saturday night’s Nascar Nationwide Series race in Nashville, Tenn., Pastor Joe Nelms was tasked with delivering the invocation. What happened next plays like a scene straight out of Will Ferrell’s “Talladega Nights.”

And here is a followup at The Christian Post:

A Tennessee pastor claims he was emulating the apostle Paul when he was called on to deliver the opening prayer at a NASCAR event in which he thanked God for his “smokin’ hot wife,” among other things. Some fans have called it the “best prayer ever” while critics are calling it disrespectful and possibly blasphemous.

Joe Nelms, pastor of Family Baptist Church in Lebanon, Tenn., insists that he was just trying to be like the first-century apostle, but some wonder how far Paul would go in his effort to become “all things to all men.”…

Although the prayer might have offended some people, Nelms said the prayer was not really for Christian audiences. He was more trying to reach out to the unsaved or those turned off by church.

“Our whole goal was to open doors that would not otherwise be open. There are a lot of folks who think churches are all [full of] serious people who never enjoy life and [who have] just a list of rules.”

His invocation was all about showing the world what Christian joy looks like, he said, sharing a bit of his testimony. “We who have been saved by Christ, we know that living has just begun. When I accepted Christ, that’s when I really learned what joy was.”

Despite criticism, Nelms’ evangelism effort has apparently paid off; several people have contacted him expressing a desire to give church a try.

The cover is by some kid named Roomie, who posts a lot of music videos on YouTube.

And that’s all I know.

Turns out America likes Edwards less than I do

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If y’all will recall, I experienced an unexpected, and not entirely pleasant, moment in the national spotlight back in 2007 when I wrote a column headlined, “Why I see John Edwards as a big phony.”

I caught a lot of heat about it at the time. I later had the gratification of having many people tell me I’d been right all along, even though what was learned about him later was somewhat different from what I was accusing him of. Nevertheless, all of it spoke to his general failure to be what he represented himself to be.

But even I, who first started raising questions about the guy in 2003, was slightly started to read this this morning, as Edwards’ trial started:

(CBS News) With opening arguments in the trial of former U.S. senator and presidential candidate John Edwards set to begin on on Monday, a CBS News/New York Times poll shows that public opinion of him has plummeted since he was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2007. Now, he is now most known for cheating on his wife.

The CBS/NYT poll reveals that only 3 percent of those polled hold a favorable view of Edwards, who has been charged with misusing campaign funds. That is down from 30 percent in 2007 when he was running for the Democratic nomination, which is also the last time the question was asked among registered voters.

Since 2007, Edwards’ unfavorable ratings have risen eleven points, from 30 percent to 41 percent today. However, half of those polled are undecided or don’t have an opinion of Edwards.

Women, however, especially dislike Edwards, with just 2 percent holding a favorable view of him compared to 45 percent who view him unfavorably…

And who can blame them?

But 2 percent? It almost makes me feel sorry for the guy. Almost.

Jon Huntsman marvels at inadequacy of 2012 presidential field, compares GOP to Chicoms

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In this file photo from last summer, Henry McMaster points to the one GOP presidential candidate who might have impressed Jon Huntsman.

Just ran across this over at HuffPost:

Jon Huntsman leveled harsh criticism at his party on Sunday evening, BuzzFeed’s Zeke Miller reported, comparing the Republican Party to communist China and questioning the strength of this year’s presidential field.

During an event at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, Huntsman spoke candidly about his party’s flaws, lamenting the Republican National Committee’s decision to rescind an invitation to a major fundraising event after Huntsman called for a third-party candidate to enter the race.

“This is what they do in China on party matters if you talk off script,” Huntsman said.

Huntsman, a former Utah governor who dropped out of the GOP primary in January, served as U.S. ambassador to China under President Barack Obama.

He also criticized the Republican candidates’ foreign policy stances, particularly in regard to China.

“I don’t know what world these people are living in,” Huntsman said…

Huntsman also spoke on Sunday about his presidential candidacy, revealing that he was less than impressed by his fellow candidates when he attended his first debate in August.

“Is this the best we could do?” Huntsman said he asked himself.

Turns out that Huntsman, whose SC followers largely did not follow his lead in endorsing Mitt Romney when he dropped out, is also rather lukewarm on his fellow Mormon.

At the 100th show of Pub Politics

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In case you can't tell them apart, that's Republican (hence the white collar) Tom Davis on the left, and Democrat (hence the blue collar) Boyd Summers on the right. I hope the left-right part doesn't confuse you.

Just a quick word about this.

Phil and Wesley shot the 100th show of “Pub Politics” last night, and it was a gala affair. Sponsor Franklin Jones bought free beer and boiled peanuts. All sorts showed up. And despite the small-town clannishness of SC politics, not all of them knew each other.

At one point I was chatting with Sen. Tom Davis, and he remarked, “That guy in the blue shirt over there looks just like me.” It was Boyd Summers, lately chairman of the Richland County Democrats. This matchup of political opposites was too much for me to resist, so I called Boyd over and got the above shot of the “twins.”

Rep. James Smith was there with a new band (as you’ll recall, James was once one of the legendary Root Doctors). And… just all sorts of people, Democratic and Republican.

I was not a scheduled guest on the show, but I didn’t let that stop me. I walked over in the middle of the show, leaned in and held up eight fingers and yelled, “Eight times! I’m the one and only eight-timer!” They were fairly nice about it.

: There was a pretty good crowd there for the show. Of course, they were serving free beer.

: Phil Bailey and Wesley Donehue recognize a face in the crowd, early in the show.

: In case you can’t tell them apart, that’s Republican (hence the white collar) Tom Davis on the left, and Democrat (hence the blue collar) Boyd Summer on the right. I hope the left-right part doesn’t confuse you.

“Conservatives Fooled Again!” Aw, lighten up, Francis…

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Before my friends on the left get too wound up telling us what a dangerous right-winger Mitt Romney is, I thought it might be helpful to share with you the sort of thing that actual right-wingers are saying about him. This, and the picture above, are from a release I got promoting a book by a couple of self-styled conservatives:

Des Moines, IA —Just like his lukewarm predecessors Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, and John McCain, Mitt Romney will lose the election this fall, which means the time is now for patriots to begin planning for 2016 lest they risk getting fooled again by the Republican establishment.

So says best-selling conservative author Gregg Jackson and nationally-syndicated radio host Steve Deace, the co-authors of the explosive new book We Won’t Get Fooled Again: Where the Christian Right Went Wrong and How to Make America Right Again. Endorsed by former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and former Congressman J.C. Watts, We Won’t Get Fooled Again documents 30 years of failed political activism by conservatives, including interviews with several of the movement’s leading figures like Ann Coulter, Dr. Richard Land, and Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family.

“Moderates never win presidential elections and Romney won’t either,” said Jackson, former talk show host at WRKO in Boston. “Every time we have allowed the Republican establishment to have its way the country has lost. And as someone who was on the radio during Romney’s time as governor of Massachusetts, I saw up close that he’s a flip-flopper at best, and a total RINO (Republican in Name Only) at worst. You can’t trust anything Romney says in one news cycle, let alone over the long haul. Whenever the American people are faced with the choice of liberal or liberal-light, they always go with the outright liberal. That’s how we got Obama in the first place, and thanks to the GOP and the failure of many conservative leaders, 2008 is repeating itself all over again.”

Deace, who also writes for Townhall.com, concurs. “Romney has all the lame of Bob Dole plus the flip-flopping integrity of John Kerry,” Deace said. “Right now in the White House we have a committed leftist the American people seem poised to reject, but leave it to the Republican establishment to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory yet again by nominating someone who has a record of healthcare mandates, taxpayer-funded abortions, and support for the homosexual agenda that rivals Obama. Coming off of the successful 2010 mid-term election, you would’ve hoped the GOP would’ve gotten the message America wanted something dramatically different than Obama, but sadly that message fell on deaf ears. This is why the time is now for grassroots conservatives and patriots to take it upon themselves to get it right in 2016 and not leave it up to the failed Republican establishment again.”

The headline on the release was “Conservatives Fooled Again!” Which just makes me want to say, Aw, lighten up, Francis…

Memo to Harvey Peeler and Senate Republicans: ‘Conservative’ means you SUPPORT status quo

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This artwork came with the release.

This release from Wesley and the Senate Republicans is intriguing on a couple of levels:

From today’s Associated Press:
State treasurer, House speaker oppose restructuring bill

There have been some unfortunate developments with the Senate’s bill eliminating the Budget and Control Board, with “The state treasurer and House speaker opposing the Senate’s version of a bill restructuring state government.”

“Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler shot back that the Senate’s version is more conservative than what the House passed last year. He accused the two of supporting the status quo.”

If you support conservative governance, and real restructuring, NOW is the time to stand up to the failed status quo.

Contact the Speaker’s Office and the Treasurer’s Office TODAY, and tell them to support the Senate version of the Department of Administration bill, and to support elimination of the Budget and Control Board.

First, you have the Senate Republicans attacking the Republican House and Republican Treasurer. In a nostalgic sense that’s not weird, because historically the biggest, nastiest split in SC was not between Democrats and Republicans, but between Senate and House. But that was when senators identified themselves primarily as senators, and not as R and D. Now that they think of themselves as Republican senators first and foremost (and this is being sent by the “South Carolina Senate GOP”), it comes across as odd.

Then, there are the really strange words that Harvey chooses to express his disagreement with the House and Loftis: “Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler shot back that the Senate’s version is more conservative than what the House passed last year. He accused the two of supporting the status quo.”

Senator, to the extent that language has meaning, if you are “more conservative” than someone else, that means that you support the status quo more than the other person does. By definition. Go look it up. OK, I’ll save you the trouble. When I Google the word “conservative,” the first dictionary definition that comes up is the one at Dictionary.com, and the first sense of the word is: “disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.”

(I would quibble a bit with that definition. If you want “to restore traditional ones,” you are “reactionary.” But the rest is fine.)

Here they come, all right — and ‘they’ includes YOU

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A fragment from the latest of the DCCC releases that come to me several times a day, which was headlined, “here they come…“:

Since Rick Santorum dropped out yesterday, the Obama-Romney general election has fully engaged.

Just hours after Santorum’s announcement, Karl Rove teamed up with the Koch Brothers to launch a $1.7 million SuperPAC ad buy attacking President Obama in key battleground states.

There’s too much at stake to fall behind Romney, Rove, and the Koch Brothers.

Since the general election kicked off yesterday, we’re only 951 donors away from our goal of 10,000 supporters standing strong for President Obama and a Democratic Majority.

Contribute $3 or more right now to fight back against the Republicans’ swift-boat attacks >>…

My favorite part, I think, is that excellent example of the way parties use completely nonsensical terminology that they know has a proven track record of stirring the emotions of their base — in this case, “swift-boating.” (A term that hasn’t had any sort of relevance for eight years, and never had the meaning that Democrats ascribe to it — but it stirs the indignation of the faithful, and that’s the point.)

This release can be understood on several levels. One is face value: Now that his chief rival has dropped out, Mitt Romney will turn his full evil machine on our beloved President Obama, so you must give us money so we can fight him! Which is problematic in that the situation is not new. Romney has been trying to ignore his rivals and focus on the general election since before the Iowa caucuses; he just kept getting distracted. Now, you’ll see more of the same, with fewer distractions.

Then there’s another, ironic level. This is but one of a very long series of missives over the past few months going after Mitt Romney (remember how bemused I was that the Dems were totally focused on Romney, even as Gingrich was winning the SC primary?), and also trying to scare you into giving money so the party could keep doing so. No Rubicon is being crossed here, folks. Just another step on a long, boring road.

But there is one sense in which we are seeing a qualitative change at this moment. We are, with the departure of Santorum (although not of Gingrich or Paul), entering waters that partisans on both sides have longed to enter. We are entering the area where, according to the self-justifying propaganda of both sides, they believe they have the excuse to throw off any constraints that might in the past have pulled them somewhat in the direction of truth and proportion.

In other words, here they come — the Dems and Repubs both — and their coming at us with stuff likely to be even more outrageous than what we’ve seen.

For months, the two sides have been preparing their followers for this moment. During the SC primary campaign, I repeatedly heard and saw Republicans excusing the attacks they were hurling at each other by saying, “You’d better toughen up and learn to take it now, because if you’re the nominee, this is nothing compared to the horrible stuff that Obama will throw at you in the fall.” And I would turn and look at Obama, and I would wonder whom they were talking about. We’ve all seen the kinds of campaigns Obama runs. The fact that he was NOT like that was a prime reason why we endorsed him in the 2008 SC primary.

Meanwhile, the Dems have been working as hard as ever to demonize the opposition, building to this moment when they could say, “Now these monsters will stop chewing on each other and come after US!” At which point we’re all supposed to run for the hills or something. No, excuse me — we’re supposed to throw all our money at the Democratic Party (which will FIGHT for us!) and then run for the hills.

Well, thanks for the warning. You’ve reminded me that it’s time to batten down the hatches. A squall of foolishness is headed our way. Here they come…

‘There goes that Obama, undermining initiative…’

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Twitter drew me to this picture (which I’m not actually placing on the blog because I can’t afford to pay what AP demands for rights to pictures), which had this caption:

President Barack Obama helps a little boy roll his egg to the finish line during the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, Monday, April 9, 2012, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. In the background, at left are Malia Obama and Sasha Obama. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

As soon as I read that, even before I saw the picture itself, I could imagine what the GOP commentary on the image would be like: Obama undermines individual initiative, picks winners in state-run event.

In the next wave, we’d hear, And look at how the media made that little boy look so precious and harmless! Why didn’t they wait until he was 17, and get him in a hoodie with facial hair?

Do you think I’m exaggerating?

Yeah, Joe, because you really need help beating Phil Black

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Just had to shake my head over this appeal from Joe Wilson:

Dear Friends,

Our South Carolina primary is on June 12th. That’s 73 days away. And tonight is our fundraising deadline for this quarter — there’s only 12 hours left to give. I need your help today as we get closer to the primary.

This is actually the last fundraising quarter before the primary. That’s why this one is so critical. Will you give $12 today?

I’m honored by the continued support across the Second District and the new support I have in Aiken through redistricting. Please donate today. Your donation will help us ensure a strong victory in June.

Sincerely,

Joe

P.S. With 12 hours left to fundraise for the last quarter before our June 12 primary, will you give $12 today?

Here’s the thing about that. Aside from the fact that Joe’s probably already drowning in money from the “You lie!” incident, he’s going to coast to victory in his primary with a dime being spent.

His only opposition is a nice guy named Phil Black, who has run against Joe before but failed to make any sort of impression on the electorate. Which is too bad, because like me, he favors a single-payer health care system. Which is another reason he’s not winning a GOP primary in Lexington County, the district’s gravitational center.

To his credit, Joe backhandedly admits that he doesn’t need the money for “victory;” he says he wants it to “ensure a strong victory.” You know, just to make absolutely sure that poor Phil is totally crushed.

I guess Joe just wants people to give token amounts of money to keep them in the habit of supporting him. Giving money to Joe is kind of like putting one of his signs in your yard. It’s the impression of support that it creates, rather than any material aid provided. Perhaps he hopes it will generate a habit of loyalty.

A crucial point that seems to have been forgotten regarding Obamacare

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Our friend E. J. Dionne had a column earlier this week accusing the more conservative members of the Supreme Court of implying a wish to usurp the powers of the legislative branch — something more popularly referred to as “judicial activism” — in their comments and questions during the oral arguments on Obamacare:

It fell to the court’s liberals — the so-called “judicial activists,” remember? — to remind their conservative brethren that legislative power is supposed to rest in our government’s elected branches.

Justice Stephen Breyer noted that some of the issues raised by opponents of the law were about “the merits of the bill,” a proper concern of Congress, not the courts. And in arguing for restraint, Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked what was wrong with leaving as much discretion as possible “in the hands of the people who should be fixing this, not us.” It was nice to be reminded that we’re a democracy, not a judicial dictatorship.

The conservative justices were obsessed with weird hypotheticals. If the federal government could make you buy health insurance, might it require you to buy broccoli, health club memberships, cellphones, burial services and cars? All of which have nothing to do with an uninsured person getting expensive treatment that others — often taxpayers — have to pay for…

I don’t know whether his inference is correct or not. He seems to be paying closer attention to the arguments than I am, so I’m inclined to give him the benefit on this. Perhaps they are presuming to judge the law on its merits rather than the law. If it were so, it would be a grievous fault — one that you may recall me getting on Sen. Obama’s case about, just before the 2008 election.

In any case, the paragraph in E.J.’s column that appealed most to me was this one:

Liberals should learn from this display that there is no point in catering to today’s hard-line conservatives. The individual mandate was a conservative idea that President Obama adopted to preserve the private market in health insurance rather than move toward a government-financed, single-payer system. What he got back from conservatives was not gratitude but charges of socialism — for adopting their own proposal.

I don’t entirely agreed with the first sentence — it sounds like Bud’s frequent assertions that conservatives are so awful that they should be given no quarter at any time. But the rest of it should be read aloud every day at the start of business in the Congress — and in our Legislature as well, given GOP lawmakers’ penchant for fulminating about the individual mandate rather than concerning themselves with state-level issues.

Yes, boys and girls. The reason there is a mandate to purchase private insurance in this bill is because of all the people on the right who won’t stand for doing the one sensible, rational thing that we should do — create a single-payer system.

Over and over, we hear extremists on the right (and increasingly, extremism has become mainstream among alleged “conservatives”) rant about this. Hey, I’m not crazy about a plan that requires us all to buy private insurance either. But because of opponents on the right, it was the only way we could do the one thing that must be done in any health plan that can be called “reform” — get everyone into the system.

And we all should remember that.

As expected, Finlay seeks Harrison’s House seat

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This just came in over the transom a few minutes ago:

Kirkman Finlay III for SC House District 75

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 28, 2012

Finlay Announces State House Run

Kirkman Finlay III to file for House Seat 75 on Thursday March 29, 2012.

Columbia, SC March 28, 2012 – Former Columbia City Councilman, Kirkman Finlay III, announces today that he will file to run for the South Carolina House of Representatives, to represent Richland County in District 75. The seat is being vacated by Republican Representative James Harrison, who announced earlier this month that he will not seek re-election in November.

The 42 year old, a lifelong Columbia resident is married to Kathleen Finlay and is the father of three daughters: Kay (12) Mary Fleming (9) and Hattie (8). Finlay is the owner of local businesses, Pawleys Front Porch, Doc’s BBQ and the Millstone at Adams Pond. He also operates a 6,000 acre soybean, corn and wheat farm. Finlay has served as a board member of thePalmetto Health Foundation, Central Carolina Community Foundation, Ducks Unlimited, Heathwood Hall Episcopal School, and the Boy Scouts of America.

“Economic Development, job creation and educational accountability will be the focus of my campaign. I want to create a strong South Carolina that brings opportunity to everyone”, said Finlay.

As part of his campaign, Mr. Finlay wants to be accessible and responsive to the voters, and invites them to contact him by e-mail, phone, or Facebook page.

Mr. Finlay has already garnered the support of local business people and Columbia residents: “Kirkman has a proven track record as a fiscally-responsible leader and has provided responsive representation to his constituents in the City ofColumbia. He will offer a common sense approach to the state budget process, which our current leadership at the State House is sorely lacking” said Joe E. Taylor, Jr., a Finlay supporter and former Secretary of the South Carolina Department of Commerce.

“Kirkman is above-board in his business dealings, and I know that he will carry that ethic to the State House in his representation of Richland County” said Jimmy Stevenson, a Finlay supporter and long-time business associate.

Mr. Finlay is running as a Republican candidate.

Anyone wishing to support the campaign should e-mail: [email protected]

Ah, Madeleine, you’re better than that

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I really liked Madeleine Albright when she was secretary of state, and not just because she coined the phrase about the U.S. being the “indispensable nation” in world affairs, which encapsulated the responsibility our nation has at this juncture in its history as well as I’ve seen anyone else do it.

So I hate to see her stooping to allow her name to be affixed to another of those hyperbolic rants that I get, several times a day, from the DCCC:

Brad —

It seems every time women take one step forward, extremists try to push us back.

Here in America, Republicans have launched an all out attack on women’s rights…

Oh, really, Madame Secretary? All-out attack? So I suppose women are just being rounded up and thrown into concentration camps en masse, without regard to habeas corpus. Because that’s what an “all-out” attack on rights would look like.

And this from someone who had to deal, on behalf of this nation, with places of which such things might actually be true?

She should leave this stuff to James Carville and Nancy Pelosi and the other usual suspects whose names appear on these things. She should value more highly her reputation for having a sense of proportion.

Happy to be a resource for a colleague

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I see that one of my episodes of “The Brad Show” (a feature I really must get around to reviving one of these days) provided some grist for Kevin Fisher’s mill, in a piece headlined, “Harpo, Homophobia and Hypocrisy:”

Harpo characterized McConnell as “prancing” in Civil War reenactments rather than “marching” or “participating” or “performing” in those events for a reason, the same reason for similar comments he made in a video interview with local blogger Brad Warthen in April 2011.

In a discussion of McConnell’s high-profile involvement in Civil War history, Warthen noted that the then-senator reportedly owns “17 Confederate costumes,” to which Harpo replied, “And one of them has hoops.” To make his point crystal clear, Harpootlian gestured around his waist to indicate a hoop skirt…

Finally, what about you, Cindi Ross Scoppe and Warren Bolton, editorial writers for The State — does Harpo get a free pass that you wouldn’t give anyone else of his prominence who was making such remarks?

Speaking of which, Harpootlian also told Warthen that “the girly boy thing didn’t work” for Democrats. For Harpo, it’s all macho, no homo, no doubt.

If you’d like to go back and view the full episode, here it is.

Oh, and as for Kevin’s challenge to my former teammates… well, I suggest he’d be hard-pressed to find when Cindi or Warren ever took anyone to task for their perceived “homophobia.” So, no, they’re not giving him a “pass” that they wouldn’t give anyone else. I think Kevin is falling into a trap here, one I see folks fall into a lot: Cindi and Warren work for the MSM. That means they must be doctrinaire liberals. Therefore they’re probably always going on about “homophobia.” So they must be hyprocrites for not castigating their fellow “liberal.”

Fine theory for the ideologically inclined, except that it can’t be supported.

As for my own part — I showed you what Dick had to say. You decide what you think about it. I’m just glad I was able to provide Kevin with some original material. Makes me feel authoritative…

bradwarthen.com

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