I love knowing there are Conservatives out there than are intelligent and rational.
http://www.thenextright.com/patrick-ruf ... ckley-back
The article against the Joe the Plumberization of the GOPAs a fiscal and social conservative, I happen to think Jon is completely in the right here, both substantively and strategically. Don't raise the canard that we ought to be attacking Democrats first. Conservatives are entirely within their rights to have public debates over who will publicly represent them, and who will be allowed to affiliate with the conservative movement.
The Birthers are the latest in a long line of paranoid conspiracy believers of the left and right who happen to attach themselves to notions that simply are not true. Descended from the 9/11 Truthers, the LaRouchies, the North American Union buffs, and way back when, the John Birch Society, the Birthers are hardly a new breed in American politics.
Each and every time they have appeared, mainstream conservatives from William F. Buckley to Ronald Reagan have risen to reject these influences -- and I expect that will be the case once again here.
But there is another subtext that makes Jon's appeal more urgent. As a pretty down-the-line conservative, I don't believe I am alone in noting with disappointment the trivialization, excessive sloganeering, and pettiness that has overtaken the movement of late. In "The Joe the Plumberization of the GOP," I argued that conservatives have grown too comfortable with wearing scorn as a badge of honor, content to play sarcastic second fiddle to the dominant culture of academia and Hollywood with second-rate knock-off institutions. A side effect of this has been a tendency to accept conspiracy nuts as a slightly cranky edge case within the broad continuum of conservatism, rather than as a threat to the movement itself.
Those advocating a tough stand against the Birthers like to point to William F. Buckley and the Birchers.
In founding National Review, Buckley made a point of casting out the conspiracy nuts and the cranks of his day because he saw them as a fundamental threat to a conservatism that was just emerging as a political force. In doing so, he was able to define conservatism for a generation.
http://www.thenextright.com/patrick-ruf ... of-the-gop
http://www.thenextright.com/jon-henke/o ... ldnetdailyConservatives should not need Joe the Plumber to prove their middle class bona fides. We are naturally the party of the middle, and we don't need gimmicks to prove it. Demographically, Democrats rely on being the party of the upper sixth and the lower third, while Republicans tend to do better with everyone in between. When we start losing the middle class and the suburbs, we lose big like we did in 2008.
Put another way, Republicans thrive as the party of normal Americans -- the people in the middle culturally and economically. This is true of our leadership as well -- we have a history of nominating figures who came first from outside politics. Our base is the common-sense voter in the middle who bought a house she could afford and didn't lavishly overspend in good times and who is now subsidizing the person who didn't.
When you think about it, a majority built around this solid middle-American base should beat the disjointed liberal rich/poor coalition. This sense of frugality, orderliness, and personal responsibility is something everything aspires to in difficult times. This is why Obama's pitch is fundamentally off-key if framed correctly. People's first instincts in a recession are not to overspend, but to tighten their belts. Obama's address last night assumed that no one is responsible for anything, except maybe corporate CEOs. The banks as institutions are not ultimately responsible. People who took out risky mortgages are not responsible. The Administration is not responsible for sharing in the pain by postponing longer-term projects like health care. And even if they are, everything in a recession is subsumed to the need to throw money at the problem in an attempt to stabilize the system. The risk for Obama in embracing the bailout mentality is that it catches up to you: this is not how ordinary people act in their daily lives without major consequences down the road.
In these serious times, conservatives need to get serious and ditch the gimmicks and the self-referential credentializing and talk to the entire country. If the average apolitical American walked into CPAC or any movement conservative gathering would they feel like they learned something new or that we presented a vision compelling to them in their daily lives? Or would it all be talk of a President from 25 years ago and Adam Smith lapel pins? This is why I love Newt's emphasis on finding 80/20 issues and defining them in completely non-ideological terms. We need to advance our ideas without ever once saying the word "conservative" or "Republican" in a speech. We need to define these ideas not as conservative, but as American. We need to be confident, like the left is, that we are the natural governing party because our ideas are in alignment with basic American principles, and quit treating middle class, working class, or rural Americans like an interest group to be mollified by symbolic, substance-free BS.
Even thoughtful editorial about healthcare reformIn the 1960's, William F. Buckley denounced the John Birch Society leadership for being "so far removed from common sense" and later said "We cannot allow the emblem of irresponsibility to attach to the conservative banner."
The Birthers are the Birchers of our time, and WorldNetDaily is their pamphlet. The Right has mostly ignored these embarrassing people and organizations, but some people and organizations inexplicably choose to support WND through advertising and email list rental or other collaboration. For instance, I have been told that F.I.R.E (The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) - an otherwise respectable group that does important work - uses the WND email list. They should stop. [SEE UPDATE II]
UPDATE II
I tried to contact F.I.R.E. yesterday before publishing this and I tried again today, but never received a response. However, David Mastio, Senior Editor for Online Opinion and Innovation at the Washington Times, emails to tell me the response he got from F.I.R.E.I think that is a reasonable and satisfactory explanation from F.I.R.E.I called Fire and talked to the Veep Robert Shibley.
According to him, Fire rented a list from WND through a third party broker on one occasion (SOP for list rental) and does not have any continuing relationship or plans to rent from them again. He says that they were not aware of any loopy views espoused by WND as they didn't see a need to investigate before they rented the list.
http://www.thenextright.com/marsha-blac ... care-bills
