On this Saturday, I’ve decided to pen a very short column. I have a lot of thinking to do. As a conservative activist and voter in California, I am struggling to find my enthusiasm. Can you help me find it? As I reflect on where things are right now:
I am struggling to show enthusiasm for the President. His embrace and seeming comfort with the growth in domestic spending is unnerving. Add to this my belief that trying to create a democracy in Iraq will end with us never being able to leave that place, else there will be a quick return to a religious hegemony. I will never forgive the President for signing the McCain-Feingold ‘attack on free speech’ campaign law. Thank goodness for those SCOTUS picks, but while that affirms I voted right, it doesn’t instill enthusiasm.
I am struggling to show enthusiasm for our Republican Congress. With spending up in record amounts and the ‘conservative’ House Leadership passionately defending the status quo, it’s easy to get disappointed. I keep waiting for up and down votes on real reductions in the size and scope in government, to allow us all to focus our ire on the ‘problem’ Republicans — and help the party realize that liberal/moderate Republicans are endangering our majority by creating a chasm between GOP rhetoric and GOP accomplishment (how can we credibly campaign as a party of limited government when our record is presiding over the growth of government?).
As a conservative, I stepped up and pushed hard for Arnold Schwarzenegger in the recall. Yet, the ‘broom’ he used as a prop in rallies as he talked about the need to ‘sweep out’ the special interests is now in the gubernatorial broom closet. Instead, as a conservative, I have to read over a dozen headlines today about how this massive infrastructure plan is a win-win for the Governor and for Democrats. For the Governor because he has called for infrastructure investment, and for the Democrats because it is largely their spending plan. Lost in the discussion is that pay-as-you-go was triumphantly canned by Democrats, while Republican parade around "Prop 42 reform" as our victory. Pay-as-you-go was and is supposed to be annual allocations from the general fund towards infrastructure. Now conservatives are supposed to campaign for profligate government spending without any pay-as-you-go, and with a sausage-machine set of bonds that include literally BILLIONS in spending on programs that would make ANY conservative literally sick to their stomach? Our GOP legislative leadership didn’t lead, but rather they followed the lead of Perata and Nunez, which was very disappointing. Senator Tom McClintock, always more eloquent, said in a newspaper today, " "My main concern is that much of those three bonds is for equipment, maintenance and social programs that are going to be obsolete before the bonds are paid off by our children."
Even locally, here in my own city of Irvine, the Democrats control city government — and my own left-wing Mayor got a ‘shout out’ and a photo-op with the President when he came to town (I’m quite certain she’s never voted for him, and equally as certain that her photo with the POTUS will appear in re-election mailers to high-propensity voting GOP households).
I figure with the many, many thousands of you who, for some reason, read my thoughts here each day, I probably owe it to you all to step-it-up and find something to be positive about. We’ll see if this column is a single occurrence or not. With my attitude today, you may see a string of commentaries asking a very important question: Shouldn’t conservative voters have a reason to be FOR something to motivate us to vote in November? I’m not willing to settle for having to vote to AGAINST something, or someone.
There was a time when conservatives could champion candidates and causes that matched the rhetoric of individual liberty, freedom, and opportunity with policy goals that matched them.
Now I am wondering what or who to be FOR in the coming elections. Especially when Republicans seem intent on campaigning on a theme of "what government can do for you" that would make Ronald Reagan angry.
I am also prepared to be skeptical as the election approaches, of rhetoric to appease conservatives that is more motivated to get our votes than to achieve our goals.
With all of that said, have a GREAT Saturday! I will!
Jon
P.S. How about instead of the worn out ‘No New Taxes’ rhetoric, we pick up the banner of ‘No New Spending’ — it would be more accurate of our problems in Washington, Sacramento, and in my home town of Irvine.
May 6th, 2006 at 12:00 am
You should support Arnold for two simple reasons, and maybe three.
1. He won’t legalize same-sex marriage, and Westly or Angelides will.
2. He won’t legalize doctor-assisted suicide, and Westly or Angelides will.
3. (And this one I can’t guarantee) He won’t legalize drivers licenses for illegal immigrants, and Westly probably will, Angelides definitely will.
There’s more to being a Republican than opposing taxes. There are values. Schwarzenegger and Bush and the leadership in Congress should come up with a few and campiagn on them.
May 6th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Jon-
This conservative is NOT struggling, let me tell you why.
I don’t think that just because I am a Republican I need to feel good about or justify everything that Republicans are doing. Nor do I feel obligated to defend Republican officeholders when they veer from professed Republican or conservative principles. When I registered to vote 11 years ago and checked “Republican” it did not constitute a blood oath to support the GOP that also bound my children and my childrens’ children. Where does this cult mentality come from?
I have long since given up on this president. Be it CFR, Medicare, spending, bigger government, open borders, where is the conservatism? And why should I have to feel good about him? Why should I get excited and send the RNC another check when he betrays the ideals he supposedly holds dear?
The Republican Congress? At least they’ve not (yet?) surrendered on illegal immigration and dropped HR 4437. But they were there to support the president’s big spending, big government “compassionate conservatism” at every turn. “Thanks for the arm-twisting, Mr. Leader, of course the president has my vote, Constitution? What Constitution?”
And we need to bolster the ranks of the establishment Republicans by sending Brian Bilbray instead of a conservative back to Congress? WHY??
Most of the time, I applaud our Republicans in Sacramento for sticking to their guns more than the Republicans in DC, but not lately? We’re surprised that the governor and GOP legislative leaders went along with the big spending bonds? Why? They’ve bought into the “spending more means we care more” lie. Besides, you had your chance to get a REAL Republican, Tom McClintock, elected governor. En masse nearly every leader in the state’s GOP went for the easy win rather than the hard-fought win that delivers principles. This is what you get.
So no, I don’t feel the need to defend losers. What can we do to get people who will really hold to their principles in office? First, get over the cult menatality. When an officeholder strays, whip them into line. That’s why even longtime incumbents have to go through primaries. We shouldn’t be afraid to, for example, out of thin air, oust David Dreier for Sonny Sardo.
We as conservatives who say we hold certain ideals dear need to hold our first loyalty to those ideas, NOT to any man or woman who pretended to long enough to get elected and then relys on party loyalty to stay in office. Our officeholders should be getting as much angry phone calls, faxes and emails as we send to Boxer and Feinstein.
Also, we need to try to encourage more involvement in the party by principled people. By that I mean, when a Republican runs in a tough district, let’s do more than pay their filing fee, pat them on the back and leave them for dead. I have known MANY (and been) one of those Republicans. They were all unqualified defenders of the Constitution and conservatism governance. Thanks to party game playing and the disillusionment many of them feel these days with our own party, they give up on activism. And all that does is take away one more voice we need on our side.
End rant.
May 6th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Jon, Find your energy if not your enthusiasm. Without you and other principled conservatives pushing for common sense on taxes, spending, and social issues who knows where some of our Republican leadership would go. It may seem like you are a prophet crying in the wilderness but one voice can accomplish much.
May 6th, 2006 at 12:00 am
It seems that your party may just be falling apart at the seams.
Our country elected a frat boy into office–no, wait, the Supreme Court originally did that! Then after Bush took us into Iraq by telling lies about 9/11 connections and WMDs, he got a second term because just enough voters didn’t want to switch teams during wartime.
Now, halfway into his second term, we have someone in charge (“The Decider”) who is in denial, with thousands dead in Iraq after he claimed “Mission Accomplished” and Osama bin Laden is still free. There is no Plan B for Iraq, New Orleans (and much of the Gulf Coast) is still in shambles, gasoline is off the charts, the list goes on and on. Finally, this country is seeing the light and realizes that we have an incompetent administration.
In California, Darrell Issa used his own money to buy the governor’s seat; too bad for him that he lost at his own game when he found out that this state merely wanted a Hollywood celebrity. Too bad for Schwarzenegger that voters didn’t want his initiatives in his incredibly costly Special Election.
I know Republicans will read this and simply roll their eyes at my post. You don’t want to hear what more than half the country thinks. Instead you continue to make decade-old Bill Clinton jokes, while the rest of us are watching news footage of Republicans getting arrested. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
Well, don’t you worry about a thing, my Republican friends! If there is one thing you know how to do, it’s organize and get your party elected! Oh, you may not always do it ethically, but you know how to get them into office. Too bad there are so many Republicans who don’t know what to do once they get there…
May 6th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Jon et al,
I think you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned that the conservative base needs something to vote “for.” It needs an imperative and a clear call to action – and they need it NOW.
With that said, I don’t think that the stop gap measures that have been used as of late by the congress and the state legislature will be enough to keep Republicans coming to the polls. (maybe 06 but not 08)
I did however, like the ideas that conservatives should once again (nationally) reach to their roots, light up the phones of the poor voting electeds in their state (Reep and Dem alike) and start building coalitions to elect conservatives into office. I’m not saying circular firing squad style, just accountability.
Give them something to vote “for” again.
Karen Hanretty quickly posted some great thoughts, that are congent and worth promoting.
The question is will the voters of CA hear those? Are they being echoed in the press after every socialist propaganda press release the Westly/Angelides folks put out? I don’t hear that dissent. (At least not consistently.)
Oh and Jo Ann, thanks for reminding everyone why Democrats will still be in the minority nationally for years to come. They’re bandwagon defeatests without reason or principles that string together special interest groups with empty promises and impotent ideas.
I can’t tell you the last time I heard a Clinton joke in a Republican circle. So weak.
Hope everyone enjoys the weekend!
May 6th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Pat Bates tought me many important lessons, but one of the most important is summed up by the phrase “governing conservative”.
How should elected conservatives participate in the governing process?
The budget will be moving at full speed starting Friday. Two absolute certainties: It will pass and it will be bad.
We know how liberals are going to behave but what are elected conservatives going to do? What should they do?
May 6th, 2006 at 12:00 am
On the budget – that’s easy. Fight, fight, fight and when we can’t fight (for limited government) anymore, then muster up the strength and fight more. If the Democrats ‘buy off’ GOP votes, shame on those Republicans for not standing by principle.
In the end, we are only that much worse off if the budget ‘negotiations’ end up like the big bonds ‘negotiations’ — where the public sees bi-partisan growth in government.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, there is a lofty point at which conservatives can vote yes (in the bonds debate, it would have been the elimination of the socialized spending, CEQA reforms on all projects, no more prevailing wage, a (largely symbolic cap on indebtedness) and a commitment for this year, and going forward for several billion dollars a year in from the general fund for pay-as-you-go infrastucture.
Of course, because we signed off on the plans we did, we are now going to campaign into the fall as the “what government can do for you with your own money, and your childrens money” party.
Standing tall on the budget, and dragging it kicking and screaming through the summer, until there are real consessions, or the Dems cave in is the only remaining chance that GOP legislators have of getting any word to Republican voters that we are a party of limited government.
And even with that, the Governor’s fall “build it” campaign may get him re-elected, but will not do anything to excite conservatives who are nervous, concerned or worse about the growth in government at every level.
My ten cents.
May 6th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Thanks for your comments, Will!
Interesting that you call me a defeatist for pointing out your party’s concerns. Sorry to be your buzzkill. I hope your party can find something to vote “for” again. You probably will be able to spin it in your favor–that was my point… that’s what you’re good at.
That’s great that you haven’t heard a Bill Clinton joke in Republican circles in years! Somehow I keep hearing them. In fact, didn’t I just read one recently? Let me think… oh yes, that’s right! Here on the FlashReport in Jennifer Nelson’s 5/1/06 post.
Have a great weekend.
May 6th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Ms. McStravick:
PLEASE keep repeating the John Kerry songbook of 2004. Please !
It worked so well for you the last time.
And pay no attention to ANOTHER Kennedy crashing his car and leaving
town one step ahead of the Sheriff.
May 7th, 2006 at 12:00 am
You’re disillusioned because you’re not drinking the Kool-Aid.
The late, great Hunter Thompson told a wonderful (if probably embellished) story in his compendium, Generation of Swine:
Dr. Thompson is called to a friend’s house. He finds his friend in the bathroom, with his notorious lush of a girlfriend in the bathtub, horribly ill. “Don’t worry, honey,” the friend tells his girlfriend. “It’ll all be over soon.” He gives her some “medicine” and a bottle of booze to suck on, which promptly causes her to begin retching uncontrollably. Then he leads Dr. Thompson out of the room.
“She’ll be fine,” says the friend. “But I’m going to teach her a lesson she’ll never forget. He waves the “medicine” bottle at Thompson.
“You evil swine!” declares Thompson. “This is Antabuse.”
(Antabuse is an emetic which, in combination with alcohol, causes violent vomiting – as Thompson describes it, ‘it is like wiring a pipe bomb to your transmission that will only explode if put in reverse.’) (Sorry for the poor retelling – the book is at my office.)
So, what’s my point with that story?
The Republican Party has been drunk on power and our tax dollars for far too long. Sorry if some find this heretical, but I think the only thing that will cure the party is a medicine as powerful and poisonous as Antabuse: the loss of its unchecked power. If 2006 is a repeat of 1992 for the GOP – and I suspect it well may be – not only will it be well-deserved, it may be the only medicine that shakes the party out of its complacency and forces the leadership to come full circle, and return to the advocacy of limited, Constitutional government.
May 7th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Thanks for your post, Mr. Sills.
First off, I’m not a big supporter of John Kerry, so I’m not singing from his songbook. Besides, it’s not like the election was definitive. If a few votes in Ohio had gone the other way, Bush would have lost in 2004. And now he has lower job approval ratings than any president in American history. Even conservatives are having second thoughts…
“Another” Kennedy car crashing story? Ah, bringing up an example that goes back almost three decades before Clinton’s–well done! Shall I bring up Laura Bush’s car accident or point out all of the Republican corruption from each decade in between? By the way, you won’t hear me defending Ted Kennedy’s incident from 1969!
The story so far on Patrick’s incident is that he says he was disoriented from prescription drugs (I’m sure Limbaugh can relate) and that the Capitol Police gave him a ride home without conducting a sobriety test. He claims he asked for no favors. Regardless, it looks like the Capitol Police were giving him special treatment–that’s unethical. I hope we can all agree on that.
May 7th, 2006 at 12:00 am
While it is obvious that I am not a Conservative Republican, I respect your party’s principles, even if I don’t agree with most of them. I do completely agree with Mr. Finchum’s entertaining and well written post. He hit the nail on the head with what your party needs! While it’s against my interests to point this out… I hope you all are listening!
May 7th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Jo Ann,
I am a conservative, and while my conservatism has mutated into the libertarian variation, I think my beliefs may be stronger now than they were while I was active in the Party many years ago. Nothing would make me happier than to see the Party return to the principles that made me join it. That’s why I think it can only be saved by temporary loss. “He who attempts to save his life will lose it; and he who would lose his life, will find it.”
May 7th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Hi Anthony–thanks! :-) Of course I understand you’re a conservative. As I mentioned, while I don’t agree, I do respect your views. (I’d probably agree with you on some of your Libertarian leanings.)
I am likely the only liberal voice here who posts; of course people disagree with me. But I don’t always disagree with everyone here and your post was an example. I appreciated your comments because I think it addressed the issues that your party needs to fix.
I understand that you would like to see your party return to the principles that made you join. While I have fundamental differences of opinion, I would likely appreciate your party more if it did just that!
Enjoy your day!
May 7th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Jon your budget negotiating strategy would result in more spending and more debt. If the deal is between Democrats and the six most liberal members of the Assembly you spend more.
Pick six guys you trust and tell them to negotiate a deal with the Democrats. That budget will have elements you hate. It will also be dramatically better than the budget that results if elected conservatives are spectators instead of negotiators.
You’ll have to find six new heroes though. They will have voted for taxpayer funded abortions (California Supreme Court Deukmejian tried), prevailing wage projects (required on many projects that use federal money), public employee pension giveaways (guaranteed by pension law). It will be better but it will still be bad.