Thoughts on Conservative strategy for the 2010 Midterm Elections and beyond

To date the news from the primaries has been mostly good. Conservatives are winning big. That's good, but if we are going to turn this country around we need to be thinking about our message for November. Obviously we want to halt the slide toward socialism, but independents, who may be crucial in this election, will want to know where we are planning to go. For example, we have said we want to repeal and replace Obama Care. Independents legitimately ask, "Replace it with what?" To avoid sounding negative, Conservatives should simply say they want to replace Obama Care with an approach to health care that gives the patient choice and control and won't break his bank account. Some good examples of health care initiatives can be found at the Center for Health Transformation (http://www.healthtransformation.net/cs/health_solutions_lab)

Illegal immigration is another hot button issue that needs to be handled carefully. The first issue that needs to be addressed is border enforcement. Illegals who commit crimes (in addition to violating our borders) need to be criminally prosecuted. But what of the 12 million or so illegal immigrants who work, pay taxes and don't cause trouble? Why not offer those who can document that they have been in the US for say 10 years a path to citizenship? And once the borders are secured a guest worker program should be started to enable those who want to work in agriculture, construction or any other field where they are needed to come to the US for a definite period of time. Since they would be required to register with ICE the opportunity for unscrupulous employers to cheat them on salary and benefits would be limited, and terrorists trying to cross th border could be caught.

One thing Conservatives should unequivocally oppose is further deficit spending. No more "stimulus" bills. Conservatives should also advocate making the Bush tax cuts permanent.

Thinking beyond the November election, Conservatives need to develop a strategy to avoid mischief by the lame duck Congress between the election recess and January. Filibusters can be mounted in the Senate. In the House no provision for a filibuster exists. However, Congressmen can begin introducing bills that will be part of their legislative agenda for 2011. Each bill will occupy some House time and thereby delay the Democrat majority bills. Discharge petitions can be used to unlock bills tied up in committee.

I smell a rat

After weeks of fighting to include a “public option” in the health care bill the Obama administration suddenly backs off, saying the public option “is not the heart of the health care bill”. This may be good news, but there is still much to dislike in the health care bill:

• Funding the health care system in part by taking $500 billion from Medicare over 10 years. Many doctors already refuse to take new Medicare patients, as I found out when I moved from Michigan to Texas last year. Currently Medicare pays 80% of the amount Medicare has established for a procedure (not 80% of the price the doctor quotes). If this reimbursement goes down to 60% or lower, fewer doctors will be willing to take Medicare patients. Seniors beware if you are contemplating a move.
• Not only does the bill cover the 48 million Americans who allegedly lack health insurance, it extends to illegal aliens – upwards of 20 million people. With the bill’s stringent limits on how much doctors can be paid for their services, the number of doctors in the U. S. is likely to decline, leading to rationing of health care.
• The so-called “Insurance coops” proposed by the health care bill can serve the same purpose as the public option: Giving the government control over coverage and treatment, eventually squeezing private insurers out of the health insurance business.
• The public option is still in the House version of the bill and could be reinserted in conference.

At the end of the day the health care bill is not about health care at all. It’s about the Federal government taking control of health care decisions that ought to be made by private individuals and their doctors

Town Hall Meetings

With the arrival of the August Congressional recess, lawmakers are back in their districts holding town hall meetings. This year many of the meetings are experiencing large turnouts of not always polite participants. Conservatives, especially, are deeply concerned about the program President Obama is pushing:

1. Will it increase taxes?
2. What will happen to Medicare, with partial funding of the program coming from Medicare?
3. Will it result in long waits for treatment and rationing of treatment?

Unfortunately, feeling is running so high that meetings have degenerated into shouting matches. As a conservative, I sympathize with the protesters. But are they accomplishing anything? I wonder. And the liberals are beginning to react with counterprotests. This is a recipe for violence, which no one in his right mind ought to want. Vigorous debate in a democracy is desirable. Disruption of meetings which ought to be forums for vigorous debate is not, and is destructive to democracy.
A month remains until Congress reconvenes. That’s enough time for Congress to hire a polling organization to sample every legislative district to find out what the electorate thinks of President Obama’s healthcare proposal and what reforms they advocate in health care. Then Congress can proceed with good information about what the public supports and does not support.

What should conservatives do now?

Conservatives have spent plenty of time and words lamenting the socialist bent of the Obama administration and the current Congress. While telling our friends and neighbors and, indeed, the nation, what is wrong with the administration’s and Congress’ policies, we need to be actively pursuing an agenda of our own.

One part of that agenda ought to be the formation of planning/study groups to formulate plans for undoing the damage the current administration and Congress do. I am tired of hearing talk show hosts say that if, for example, the current government institutes nationalized health care we will never be able to undo it. True, we won’t, if we don’t plan a strategy for undoing it. Such a strategy must address not only what laws and regulation need to be repealed, and how to protect innocent people who have come to rely on them, but also how to justify the plan to the voters.

Plans need to be made for dealing with the huge debt that government is likely to run up. Dare we simply declare a part of it null and void? I doubt it. Historically the US has been faithful about paying its debts. We will need to plan tax reductions to encourage business and innovation. It’s a historical fact that reducing taxes increases government revenue, and we will need increased revenue to pay down the debt. And we may need to plan how to approach creditors to obtain extended terms.

Should criminal or civil prosecution be brought against any of the members of the government? Probably not, except in cases of provable criminal or unethical activity, such as (possibly) the sweetheart mortgages obtained by Barney Frank and others. In any case lists of those culpable should be compiled and appropriate disciplinary measures decided on. A caution is that any disciplinary action should be for real crimes or actions not in the best interests of the nation—they should not be a vendetta.

Every action of the government needs to be studied and responded to – not with criticism, but with alternatives that involve market mechanisms and preserve freedom. Here it’s important to formulate responses in positive terms so that voters can see that we are offering solutions, not merely criticizing.

Candidates for Congress in 2010 and 2012 need to be vetted and evaluated on their positions, their records and their appeal. The same goes for Presidential candidates. Several talk show hosts have said that Republican candidates need to return to their conservative roots. True, but they also need to have appeal. While some of Ronald Reagan’s positions may no longer be relevant (I doubt this) two of his characteristics we must retain are his conservatism and his appeal. Reagan was difficult to dislike, even by those who disagreed emphatically with him. His humor and his “Aw shucks” attitude forced even his political enemies to like him. Conservatives need to be conservative and likable.

You may ask how conservatives should organize. Who do you call? A good place to start is Newt Gingrich’s organization American Solutions. (http://www.americansolutions.com/) American Solutions works by convening groups of people to think through potential solutions to the problems facing our country. Although the solutions proposed will generally please conservatives, they are presented in a common sense way that will convince independents and even a few liberals.

Why I signed a petition about Obama's Birth Certificate

The issue of whether a candidate for the Presidency is a "Natural Born Citizen" has come up in the past. One instance I remember is in the 60's when George Romney was running in the primaries for President. It was alleged that he was born in Mexico and therefore wasn't a natural born citizen. In the election of 2008 not only Obama's natural born status was questioned, but McCain's as well. McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone. In 1790 Congress passed a law which defined the son or daughter of an American born overseas as a natural born citizen. The Wikipedia in the entry which can be found by Googling "natural born citizen" states

The 1790 Congress, many of whose members had been members of the Constitutional Convention, provided in the Naturalization Act of 1790 that "And the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens."

But in 1795, according to the Wikipedia

the Congress passed the Naturalization Act of 1795 which removed the words "natural born" from this statement to state that such children born to citizens beyond the seas are citizens of the U.S., but are not legally to be considered "natural born citizens" of the U.S.

I had always been under the impression that the son or daughter of an American citizen was considered a citizen even though born overseas, and I was vaguely aware of the 1790 law which defined "natural born" to include the sons and daughters of Americans born outside the U. S.
But I signed the petition in the hopes that the Supreme Court would hear the case and rule and clear this issue up once and for all. So far as I'm concerned Obama won the election fair and square. He will be our next president. But please, Supreme Court, clear this issue up.

Saving the auto industry

The airwaves and the print media are brimming with prescriptions for saving the US auto industry, warnings about what will happen if it is allowed to collapse, and finger pointing at auto executives, unions and governments.

Much of the rhetoric assumes that if the government fails to bail out the automobile industry, it will collapse, leaving millions of people jobless and millions of retirees without their pensions.

Clearly the auto industry is in serious straits, and some serious measures will be needed to save it. However, a government bailout, or loan as the auto executives insist on calling it, is precisely the wrong solution. A bailout will give the auto companies breathing space – which they can use to wait for the programs they already have in place to bear fruit, and for economic conditions to improve. But the auto companies have serious problems that need to be dealt with now: worker and retiree pay and benefits, union contracts that give overseas manufacturers a huge advantage, management’s tendency to concentrate on big cars and SUV’s because they have higher profit margins (or did until recently). These problems can only be solved by the auto companies, possibly under new management. A Chapter 11 reorganization would allow the auto companies to continue operating while they sort out their problems.

Does government have a role in the automotive turnaround? Certainly. Government can help by freezing the unfunded mandates they have imposed on the auto industry: fuel consumption, emissions, crashworthiness. Not that anyone is opposed to cleaner, safer, more economical cars, but how much better off would we be if the government offered a prize to the first auto company to meet a goal instead of fining those who don’t meet it?

Observations November 5, 2008

Now that the fears of conservatives have been realized in the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency and the increased Democrat majority in the House and the Senate, it’s time to assess what went wrong.

Usually there is not one single issue that leads to the demise of a party, and this case is no exception.

In 1994 Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America fired the imagination of voters and led to Republican majorities in the House and the Senate. With the election of George W. Bush in 2000 Republicans controlled the legislative and executive branches.

But all Republicans are not conservatives. Some Republicans played the same games the Democrat majority had played for years: earmarks, big budgets, appointing cronies to positions under their control.

The Bush Administration began with great hopes: The “No Child Left Behind” act; the promise of saving Social Security by establishing personal investment accounts with a portion of the Social Security tax money; the Bush tax cuts. The events of 9/11/2001 gave Bush an opportunity for greatness that he seized. But the attack on Iraq was a far messier affair. Faulty intelligence and a utopian idea that democracy could be established in the Middle East, combined with underestimates of the needed resources led to a long and bloody war. It’s true that we are winning, but are we fighting for the right reasons? Perhaps because of the Iraq war the Bush Administration lost sight of Social Security reform, and failed to push it when they had a majority in both houses.

In November 2006 the voters, fed up with the war in Iraq, and perhaps with the Bush Administration’s failure to enact initiatives like Social Security reform, installed Democrat majorities in both houses of Congress. Since that time there has been a leadership vacuum in the Republican Party. Conservatives have battled with the liberal Republican establishment—the so-called “Country Club Republicans”. Some Republican actions like the House members who refused to vacate the House last August following an adjournment that occurred before Congress had dealt with the energy issue, attracted favorable attention, but it was too little, too late. Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions and his books, “Real Change” and “Drill here, drill now, pay less”, have attracted a strong following, but not yet enough to turn any tides.

Conservatives need to unite around a program the voters can support. The outlines of such a program might be:

1. Make the Bush tax cuts permanent
2. Reform Social Security, ideally by establishing personal accounts, but any program that protects taxpayers and recipients without bankrupting the government should be fair game
3. Work toward a foreign policy that observes the ideals of America’s founders as embodied in the Constitution and the pronouncements of men like John Adams. While I don’t agree on every point, Ron Paul has valuable insights into what America’s foreign policy should look like
4. Develop a comprehensive energy program that encourages exploration and drilling for petroleum in the near term, clean coal, nuclear and other sources such as wind, solar and bio, and aims for energy independence
5. Reconsider our association with the Republican Party. This doesn’t mean we should desert the Republicans for a third party (although that’s a possibility), but that we should work for the election of conservatives, whether they be Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, or whatever.

Bill Press at journalistic crime scene -- again

Bill Press is at it again, with his recent column “McCain using 1980’s dirty tricks plan”. Specifically he takes issue with the McCain campaign’s bringing up Mr. Obama’s connections with Bill Ayers. Mr. Press writes

And finally, in an instant replay of the Willie Horton ad, they accused Obama of being an accomplice to former Weatherman Bill Ayers in planning to blow up the Pentagon.

I have not heard any accusations that Obama was an accomplice of Ayers, and I would be rather surprised if I did. As Press himself points out, Obama was only eight years old when Ayers bombed the Pentagon and the Capitol Building.

The Ayers connection, especially, is an absurd stretch. Yes, Ayers and fellow Weathermen plotted to bomb public buildings as part of their opposition to the war in Vietnam.

Not only did they plot to blow up public buildings, they actually did blow them up.

But that was in 1969 — when Barack Obama was only 8 years old. Twenty-six years later, when Obama met Ayers, the former radical was a tenured professor of education at the University of Chicago and a counselor to the mayor of Chicago on school reform.

But in 2001 Ayers publicly regretted that he hadn’t bombed more buildings. Obama has no excuse for not knowing he was befriending a terrorist.

They served on two charitable boards together, Ayers hosted a coffee for Obama's first run for public office, and they live in the same neighborhood. Obama hasn't seen or talked to Ayers since 2005. Yet pit bull Sarah Palin accuses Obama of “palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

The point is that anyone who aspires to public office ought to choose his associates very carefully – as Mr. Press would preach to any Republican who befriended, say, an ex-grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

Why I plan to vote straight Democrat

I don't usually repost something I got from someone else, but this is priceless:

This is why I am voting a straight Democratic ticket:

I'm voting Democrat because I'm way too irresponsible to own a gun, and I know that my local police are all I need to protect me from murderers and thieves. I'm voting Democrat because I love the fact that I can now marry whatever I want. I've decided to marry my horse. I'm voting Democrat because I believe oil companies' profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn't.I'm voting Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job of spending the money I earn than I would.I'm voting Democrat because freedom of speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it. I'm voting Democrat because when we pull out of Iraq I trust that the bad guys will stop what they're doing because they now think we're good people. I'm voting Democrat because I believe that people who can't tell us if it will rain on Friday CAN tell us that the polar ice caps will melt away in ten years if I don't start driving a Prius. I'm v oting Democrat because I'm not concerned about the slaughter of millions of babies so long as we keep all death row inmates alive. I'm voting Democrat because I believe that business should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as THEY see fit. I'm voting Democrat because I believe liberal judges need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who would NEVER get their agendas past the voters. I'm voting Democrat because my head is so firmly planted up my @#% it's unlikely that I'll ever have another point of view. 'A Liberal is a person who will give away everything they don't own.'- William F. Carling -

McCain and the “Keating Five”

I have been wondering how long it would take for the “Keating Five” scandal of the late 1980’s to become part of the Presidential campaign rhetoric. In his Column September 27 in The Oakland Press (http://de.theoaklandpress.com/Default/Skins/OPDigital/Client.asp?Skin=OPDigital&Daily=OLP&AppName=1) Bill Press takes McCain to task for his role in the Keating Five scandal. Because this column doesn’t appear on Press’ web site as of today, and you need a subscription to access the Oakland Press online, I’m reproducing most of the column here:

Take this to the bank, if you can still find one open for business: Two months from now, we will look back and assert that the week of Sept. 15 was the week John McCain lost the presidential election of 2008.
Why? Because that’s when Wall Street collapsed, causing real economic pain to tens of millions of Americans and exposing the failure of those conservative, unfettered free-market economic policies John McCain has championed his entire career.
This isn’t the first time McCain has been caught at a financial crime scene. Remember his first appearance on national radar? When the dust cleared from the 1980s failure of 747 savings and loans, there stood so-called reformer John McCain, right in the middle of it all: One of five senators investigated for pressuring the Federal Home Loan Bank Board to drop its investigation of crooked Lincoln Savings and Loan owner Charles Keating.

This is not the first time Bill Press has been caught at a journalistic crime scene. To lump McCain with DiConcini, Riegle and Cranston is just plain inaccurate. According to the Wikipedia entry for the Keating Five scandal,

After a lengthy investigation, the Senate Ethics Committee determined in 1991 that Alan Cranston, Dennis DeConcini, and Donald Riegle had substantially and improperly interfered with the FHLBB in its investigation of Lincoln Savings. Senators John Glenn and John McCain were cleared of having acted improperly but were criticized for having exercised "poor judgment".

The Wikipedia entry goes on to report on a meeting on April 9 1987 between Senators Cranston, DeConcini, Glenn, McCain, and Riegle and three members of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board San Francisco Branch:

The regulators then revealed that Lincoln was under criminal investigation on a variety of serious charges, at which point McCain severed all relations with Keating.
It seems likely, if not perfectly clear, that McCain was simply trying to get the investigation of Keating, a constituent and admittedly a friend, off dead center.

At one point in the meeting McCain said "To be blunt, you should charge them or get off their backs."

Press continues

Suddenly, in response to this week’s disastrous economic news, and in one of the most daring flipflops of American politics, McCain is trying to reinvent himself as the champion of government regulation, promising to push for new regulations on financial institutions.

This is not quite accurate. It appears that the reason the negotiations in Congress on the $700 billion bailout failed was that McCain sided with the House Republicans who were pushing for a lower level of government intervention – loans instead of government takeovers, and possibly repeal of the “Mark to Market” rule and the Sarbanes-Oxley act.

But it’s too late for McCain to change his spots.

Suppose McCain is changing his spots. If he is changing based on the lessons of hard experience, let’s congratulate him for learning from experience.
McCain was implicated in the Keating scandal and interviewers and Barack Obama ought to question him about his involvement and what he learned from it. If his answers are satisfactory he shouldn’t be defeated for his peripheral involvement in a scandal 20 years ago.

Telegraphing your moves

According to an article in the Sept 11, 2008 Oakland Press (Pontiac, MI) Joe Biden has engaged Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm to serve as a stand-in for Sarah Palin in preparation for the vice presidential debate. Whatever her record as Michigan governor (mixed at best), Granholm is a good choice for debate coach. But read what Biden says

Biden predicted that Palin would try to make their debate personal and said he wouldn’t respond in kind if she attacked him.
“She’s going to try to make it as personal as she can. She’s going to take a lot of straight lefts and jabs at me, she’s going to try to get me to respond, she’s going to try to get me to respond in a personal way,” Biden said at a fundraiser Tuesday night in Chicago. “That’s not my style. I’m not going to do it.”

Let's hope that Biden comes to the debate with all the lines he needs to deflect personal attacks, and Palin sticks to the issues.

The Bible and the law

In his column of June 26 Bill Press took James Dobson to task for his criticisms of Barack Obama’s theology. He wrote

James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, recently blasted Obama for his now famous “Call to Renewal” speech of 2006, in which he pointed out that there’s an inherent difficulty in attempts by evangelicals to establish the Bible as the road map for public policy. “Would we go with James Dobson’s interpretation (of the Bible),” Obama asked his audience, “or Al Sharpton’s?” For Dobson, even raising that question is pure heresy. “I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own world view, his own confused theology,” Dobson told his national radio audience. He even accused Obama of having a “fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution.” But unlike previous Democratic candidates, Obama didn’t back down. He questioned what Dobson meant by the “traditional understanding” of the Bible. “Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy?” Obama asked. “Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is an abomination? Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount?”

When it comes to public policy the government’s chief concern is maintaining order and protecting the helpless. Issues like the commandment against eating shellfish are not a government concern. But the government must have some principles to back up law enforcement. For example, polygamy was outlawed in the 19th century. How was that decision justified if not on Biblical grounds? To take another example, Muslim Sharia law prescribes penalties that would be considered cruel and unusual punishment by the 8th amendment to our Constitution. The New Testament provides the basis for excluding cruel and unusual punishment: the worth and dignity of each individual. The example from Deuteronomy 21:18-21 makes it clear that the New Testament as well as the old has something to say about the administration of justice. Jews don’t stone their children for being rebellious, but presumably must say, “we just don’t do that anymore” in justification. Christians can point to any number of passages in the New Testament to justify a firm but loving approach to raising children. He continues

Again, Obama tackled head-on what Dobson, Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell have been saying for years: that we are a Christian nation; that public policy must be based on the Bible; and that every word of the Bible must be taken literally.

Of course the founders of our country were not literalists. They were products of the enlightenment and had a more sophisticated understanding of the Bible than Dobson and Falwell. Nevertheless, they believed that the Bible should serve as a guide to the writing of laws and the administration of justice. John Adams said,

"We have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and true religion. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.'"

“Religion” in the thinking of the founding fathers meant, specifically, Christianity. He continues

In our pluralistic society, it’s not that simple. Because not all Americans are Christians, or even believers, you can’t find common ground for legislation based on the Bible.

No, it’s not that simple. But laws must have a basis and must be enforced, even on people who don’t agree with the basis. The alternative is anarchy and chaos. A good many immigrants come here because they know that the rule of law is respected here. Denying the religious basis for law just undermines it. Finally he writes

Even though most Americans are Christians, we are not a Christian nation: never have been, never will be. Therefore, in making the laws that govern our nation, we don’t turn to the Old Testament, the New Testament, or the Koran. We turn to the only sacred text that all Americans worship: the U.S. Constitution.

Please let’s not call the Constitution a “sacred text that all Americans worship”. It is the best founding document for a republic ever written, and ought to be deeply respected by every American, but not considered sacred or worshiped. Sacredness and worship are reserved for God, who gave us many of the principles written in our Constitution.

Reforming McCain

The following is the text of a message I sent to John McCain's campaign web site this evening:

As a conservative Republican, I am not happy about some of your positions on issues. I will vote for you, but if you want me to contribute to your campaign, please promise to work for the repeal of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance "reform" act. This law restricts free speech and should never have been passed.

Cleaning up Congress

In 2006 the voters gave the Democrats control of the House and the Senate, in part because the Republicans controlling Congress had not lived up to their promises of sound budgeting. However, under the Democrats deficit spending and earmarks continue.

The problem as I see it is that it's too easy to attach earmarks to bills passing through Congress. True, there are major projects approved by Congress that should never be approved. But earmarks represent a constant drain on financial resources that, if controlled, could yield substantial savings. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not proposing to completely eliminate earmarks. Some earmarks are worthwhile and ought to be passed. But the practice of simply attaching them to unrelated bills passing through Congress guarantees that they will not get the scrutiny they ought to.

The solution as I see it is twofold:

1. Require that each bill approved by Congress must address a single subject
2. Give the President a line item veto

The first provision would prevent bills from getting cluttered with unrelated special interest legislation. It would reduce the size of each bill and facilitate lawmakers concentrating on the main subject of the bill.

The second provision would help enforce the first by enabling the President to strike out provisions in a bill that do not address the subject of the bill.

Needless to say, this change could result in a vast increase in the number of bills Congress has to consider in each session. However, each bill would be smaller and address one subject, making evaluation easier. Some legislation would never come up for a vote, because of the logistics of steering it through Congress. That's not bad. A bill that really needs to be passed will be passed. The ones that don't come up for a vote are probably not worth passing anyway.