According to CNN, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) winning the CPAC presidential straw poll was a surprise. Since CNN had no presence at CPAC, it probably did catch producers at the Clinton News Network off guard. But for anyone who actually attended the three day event it was anything but. By several estimates, one in five attendees were twentysomething libertarian-leaning enthusiasts. Almost all of these supported Paul, and many could be seen passing out push-cards for his group, Campaign for Liberty. To a person, they were by far the most excited, most hopeful CPAC participants, and accounted for most of the energetic turnaround from last year’s funeral-like atmosphere.
Undoubtedly, most of these would also represent the low-tax, off-my-back Tea Party movement. However, it is striking to consider that the most dynamic speakers at CPAC – J.C. Watts, Newt Gingrich, and Glenn Beck – all took turns focusing on the cultural roots of the current political crisis. Watts claimed that it is impossible to understand America without first understanding the importance of God. Gingrich reminded listeners that most of the policy problems in Washington would not be fully solved until everyday Americans took more responsibility for their choices. And Beck passionately emphasized the growing lack of hard work as the primary impediment to expanding wealth and success. While each message isn’t necessarily at odds with the individualist outlook espoused by Paul’s libertarian supporters, focusing on cultural decline implies both a hierarchy of values and the need for a communal response.
Going forward, it will be interesting to see whether the libertarian argument for less government can be positively fused with the conservative push for a stronger, more united civil society. If so, the Right could be on its way to establishing not just a political majority this year; it could also create a cultural one too.
The more things change, the more they stay the same…
The White House this morning released a summary of President Obama’s latest proposal to reform the U.S. health care system. Billed by the administration as an “opening bid” for discussion at the president’s so-called “Bipartisan Health Care Summit” later this week, the new plan closely mirrors the Senate-passed legislation.
In other words, ObamaCare 2.03.0 … 12.0 (sorry, we lost count) is filled with the same tired proposals that the American people have already overwhelmingly rejected: an individual mandate, drastic cuts to Medicare Advantage, taxes on so-called “Cadillac” insurance plans, etc., etc., etc.
The release of the administration’s latest proposal comes on the heels of reports that Congressional Democrats are leaning heavily towards passing ObamaCare via reconciliation, a procedural trick enabling them to circumvent a filibuster of the legislation in the Senate. Indeed, according to White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, Obama’s latest health care plan was carefully crafted with that in mind.
The proposal is designed to provide “maximum flexibility to ensure that we can get an up or down vote if the opposition decides to take the extraordinary step of filibustering health reform,” Pfeiffer said on a conference call with reporters this morning.
Will someone please remind us again what opponents of ObamaCare stand to gain by participating in the sham that is Obama’s “Bipartisan” Summit on Thursday?
Over 90 percent of doctors admit to practicing defensive medicine – focusing just as much on preventing lawsuits as on preventing disease. In last week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino discussed the dire need for meaningful medical liability reform to reduce U.S. health care costs.
With a growing lead in the polls and a rousing speech at CPAC now under his belt, former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio’s candidacy for the U.S. Senate is looking better by the day. And the surging would-be senator proved yesterday that he won’t shy away from taking the fight to his more liberal primary opponent, Florida Governor Charlie Crist. Consider this jab that did everything but cite Crist by name:
2010 will not be just a choice between Republicans or Democrats. It will not just be a simple choice between liberals and conservatives. It will be a referendum on our nation’s very identity.
People want leaders that will come here to Washington D.C. and stand up to this big government agenda, not be co-opted by it. The Senate already has one Arlen Specter too many. And America already has a Democrat party. It doesn’t need another Democrat party.
In the wake of that speech, Crist has now agreed to a nationally-televised debate with Rubio on Fox News Sunday. That a primary contest is generating this kind of attention shows how important this race is going to be nationally … and how bright Marco Rubio’s future may turn out to be.
This week’s edition of the Liberty Update, CFIF’s weekly e-newsletter, is out. For those readers who don’t receive it in their e-mail inboxes or if you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, below is a summary of its contents:
The Center for Individual Freedom (“CFIF”) this week unveiled a national grassroots campaign to rally conservatives in opposition to the Obama Administration’s efforts to impose onerous “Net Neutrality” rules on the Internet. The ‘Stop Net Regulation’ campaign, launched during the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., encourages Americans to get active online through a national petition and by contacting their elected officials in opposition to a government takeover of the Internet.
Join the fight by signing the online petition here.
Following reports in Cosmopolitan, Field & Stream, Marvel Comics and My Weekly Reader, the U.N.’s IAEA yesterday issued a draft report allowing as to maybe, perhaps, possibly Iran is engaged in “past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.”
The existence of such “undisclosed activities” was first reported by Vogue nuclear fashion reporter Christine “Boogie” Boogle in the 2007 proliferation issue.
In response to the IAEA report, President Obama said that he hoped a new U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) would be ready by 2012 and waiting for that document would be a really good reason to give him a second term. In the meantime, Obama said that he would continue to press the “community of peace-loving nations” to impose sanctions on Iran, most likely consisting of bans on shipments of goats, Victoria’s Secret underwear, jello and sugared soft drinks.
Seriously, folks, there is just no meaningfully serious way to deal with some of this stuff.
Darrell Issa (R-CA), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, today issued an explosive new report on ACORN and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), charging, among other things, a “criminal conspiracy.”
Earlier today, by Executive Order, President Obama instituted a commission to make recommendations for deficit reduction. Whatever the recommendations are, whenever they come, they will have no binding authority.
This comes after Congress, which along with the administration is busily increasing the deficit, refused to set up a commission for deficit reduction.
The commission will have eighteen members. Including co-chairmen Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, Obama will appoint 6 members, Democrat leaders will appoint 6 and Republican leaders will appoint 6. Take out Simpson, a Republican, and we make that eleven to seven, meaning that President Obama, if nothing else, can really do that political math. But, we are assured, all recommendations will require 14 votes for adoption, so they will be, wonder of political math wonders, “bipartisan.” Those would, of course, be the recommendations of no binding authority.
Remember all those jobs Americans wouldn’t do? Well now we know the jobs the President and Congress won’t do – precisely the ones they were sent to Washington to do. And they wonder why so many Americans are disgusted with government…and their stewardship of it.
First, President Obama “invited” Republicans to view the Democrats unveil yet another version of ObamaCare (live on television, to make up for all those previously broken promises of an open process). That little trap is scheduled for next week.
Now, House Republicans want Democrats to debate unemployment on live television. That is scheduled for…never, we think.
There is, of course, considerable evidence that nothing is real that doesn’t appear on television. But if all this talking is only about political oneupsmanship, as it surely seems, we would modestly suggest that pistols at dawn make better television (commercial proceeds going to reduce the deficit), with much greater personal and public consequence.
CBS News’ Political Hotsheet reports that “Miss Me Yet?” merchandise, based on the Minnesota billboard featuring a smiling, waving George W. Bush is hot. That is not surprising, given the publicity that the billboard has gotten, largely because it was the subject of mystery and not the typical multiple press releases.
What did surprise us was the note at the end of the piece (from U.S. News and World Report reporting earlier this month) that the Obama Store in Washington’s Union Station has closed.
Polls are just polls, but merchandise sales? That’s humiliating. (Wasn’t Larry Summers in charge of merchandise?)
At the same time as Bayh’s decision to pursue greener pastures leaves his seat ripe for Republican picking, two West Coast Democrats are finding themselves vulnerable in a way they never imagined.
California’s liberal firebrand Barbara Boxer — a woman too far to the left for even the Golden State — is holding on to very narrow leads in potential contests against moderates Tom Campell and Carly Fiorina or conservative Chuck Devore (what may be most notable is how little difference the Republican nominee makes to the numbers).
Meanwhile, up the coast in Washington, one of the few Democratic incumbents assumed safe this year has received an ominous warning sign. Senator Patty Murray boasts double-digit leads over every Republican that has actually declared against her, but Dino Rossi — the former state senator who has been the GOP’s gubernatorial nominee in the Evergreen State’s last two cycles — actually outpolls Murray by two points. Rossi is said to still be planning on sitting out the race, but in this atmosphere that’s a miscalculation for both his career and his party’s future. Any Republican who passes on a chance for a competitive seat in this year’s environment needs to seek a career in something other than professional politics.
With two of the West Coast’s liberal safe-havens suddenly looking vulnerable and Bayh’s seat seemingly vanishing into thin air, the question has to be asked: how many more surprises can Democrats take before the 2010 Senate elections begin to look entirely hopeless?
During a presidency characterized by vapid rhetoric, it is inspiring to consider the ongoing discussion among movement conservatives to define themselves with statements of substance. Glenn Beck outlined the 9 principles and 12 values animating the Tea Party set. Newt Gingrich is calling for a new Contract with America. Members of the Religious Right are nearing a million signatures for the Manhattan Declaration. RNC Chairman Michael Steele is promoting a 10 point Republican checklist. And on the eve of this week’s CPAC Convention, several prominent conservative leaders will sign and publish the Mount Vernon Statement.
All of this is good. Each document shows that the Right is driven by ideas about the human person, society, and government. All of these statements attempt to bring together an understanding of our nation’s founding principles with an application of them to the current era. In its own way, each affirms the conservative belief that first principles need not be held hostage to recurring problems masquerading as new crises. That there is disagreement, even bitterness, is good because from it comes a more definite understanding of a coherent political philosophy. So, the next time you read about the “conservative crack-up,” read one of these documents and delight in the knowledge only one of the two major movements in this country has the courage – and the ability – to argue about first principles.
The Golden State may now be the world’s largest banana republic. After being approved by the state Senate, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s pick to be Lieutenant Governor didn’t receive enough votes in the state Assembly to secure approval or rejection. The result spawned name calling, threats of constitutional litigation, and the possibility that Schwarzenegger would seat his nominee personally and dare legislators to oppose him. He has since backed down and will re-nominate his candidate, thus restarting the process.
At this point, why not pistols at dawn? Anyone killed or unable to work thereafter wouldn’t be replaced, thus thinning the cancerous governmental herd feasting on tax dollars.
As the reasons for Senator Evan Bayh’s (D-IN) decision not to run for re-election this year trickle out, it sounds like the life-long politician has learned that the private sector – not government – is the engine that drives human prosperity. When asked today about his future plans, Bayh responded:
“But if I could create one job in the private sector by helping to grow a business, that would be one more than Congress has created in the last six months. If I could help educate our children at an institution for higher learning, that would be a noble thing. If I could help a charity, cure a disease or do something else worthwhile for society — that’s what has motivated my life and that’s what I think Congress needs to focus on, things that will help the American people meet the challenges they face in real ways in their daily lives. That’s what I want to do with my life. And if you’ll invite me back on your show in 11 months, I’ll be able to tell you!”
Although it is too bad Bayh won’t be in Congress spreading that message, the Republic is strengthened if even just one Democrat can learn the truth about where true fulfillment lies.
According to a Boston Herald report, a relative of murderous University of Alabama-Huntsville professor Amy Bishop described her as a far-left political extremist:
“A family source said Bishop, a mother of four children – the youngest a third-grade boy – was a far-left political extremist who was ‘obsessed’ with President Obama to the point of being off-putting.”
Admittedly, we cannot muster the gastrointestinal fortitude to continuously monitor the silly MSNBC triumvirate of Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, but weren’t the Tea Partiers the potentially violent political extremists, according to them? The trio repeatedly manages to locate the proverbial needle-in-a-haystack Tea Party protester carrying a distasteful “Obama = Hitler” placard, and they constantly suggest a sinister proclivity toward violence amongst those who actually treasure the Tenth Amendment and concepts of federalism.
We certainly won’t hold our collective breath awaiting Matthews’s, Olbermann’s or Maddow’s hard-hitting expose on the danger of violence among “far-left political extremists,” even though that perfectly describes Lee Harvey Oswald himself. But it might be a nice change of pace from their usual unicorn-chasing and suggestions that the Tea Party movement is merely cover for a return to slavery.
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