Freedom Line Blog

Sarah Palin’s decision not to seek the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee is smart politics.  Palin rightly notes that the job is mainly fundraising, something that doesn’t get the Mama Grizzly’s blood moving quite like making speeches and endorsements.

Good for Palin.  She’s right about the RNC job, which should go to someone with a proven track record for raising money and get out the vote support from all branches of the Republican Party.  Of course, it would be great to see a conservative at the helm, but it probably should be someone who is much more adept at party building than movement leading.

There may be no politician more adept at turning Tea Party popularity into actionable results than Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC).  Yesterday, the conservative icon took the unusual step of publicly withdrawing his support of his party’s fundraising head, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.  There are good reasons to do so, but by publicizing his displeasure DeMint is serving notice on the rest of the GOP that he is ready to push for a more robust conservative presence throughout the party’s apparatus.

With his Senate Conservatives Fund DeMint went head-to-head and beat several GOP primary candidates supported by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, led by fellow Senator John Cornyn (R-TX).  With freshman senators like Florida’s Marco Rubio, Kentucky’s Rand Paul, and Utah’s Mike Lee owing much to DeMint’s patronage, expect to see the junior senator from South Carolina take on a much bigger role in deciding his party’s next presidential nominee.  If DeMint manages to replace Steele with a RNC Chairman of his choosing, he will be better positioned than any conservative in the party to make a serious run for the nomination.

H/T: Roll Call

As a former staff member in the Texas House of Representatives, I have an interest in news that the chamber may be headed for conservative leadership.  This morning, Rep. Ken Paxton (R-McKinney) announced his bid to unseat current Speaker Joe Straus (R-San Antonio).  If successful, Paxton would be the third Republican Speaker in under three years, since Straus ascended to power by beating former Speaker (and my old boss) Tom Craddick (R-Midland) in 2009.

What does an intra-party fight in one of the reddest states in America mean for citizens outside the Lone Star State?  Plenty.

Texas is already the exemplar of low-tax, low-regulation state government.  Moreover, because the legislature only meets for 140 days every two years, Texas government has not had a chance to weigh in legislatively on issues like Arizona’s approach to illegal immigration and Virginia’s response to block implementation of ObamaCare.  With the kick-off of the legislative session next January, a more conservative Republican House majority will be able to make some big statements about the power of the 10^th Amendment in our federal system.

That is, if the House is run by a true conservative.  Stay tuned…

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) offers some great advice to newly elected conservative colleagues like Marco Rubio and Rand Paul: stay true to your campaign promises of less government and more freedom.  Here are the highlights:

(1)   Don’t request earmarks – they obligate you to take bad votes

(2)   Hire conservative staff – they help you avoid mistakes

(3)   Beware of committees – in the Senate, all members can legislate from the floor

(4)   Don’t seek titles – every Senator has the privilege to speak and be heard, regardless of seniority

(5)   Don’t let your reelection become more important than your job – breaking campaign promises for the sake of being reelected ensures you won’t be

DeMint’s brief column should go on the wall of every incoming Senate conservative’s office as a reminder of why they are in Washington, D.C.

H/T: Wall Street Journal

Conservatives can be forgiven for thinking that every member of the liberal establishment has read and memorized Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.  The subject of Hillary Clinton’s college senior thesis and the inspiration for a young Barack Obama’s zeal for community organizing, the Rules stand alongside Chairman Mao’s little red book in the Leftist’s canon.  But time and again, the liberals running the Democratic Party into the ground seem to be as clueless about the rules as they are about the laws of economic gravity.

Consider Rule #12: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.  On some level, liberals knew this when they spent the better part of a year castigating Republicans as ‘The Party of No’.  They knew that the public wouldn’t accept the GOP as a credible governing party until it produced a constructive alternative.  (Though worthy of support, Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) Roadmap for America’s Future has yet to gain widespread acceptance in the GOP caucus.)  With this week’s ‘Pledge to America’ the GOP is now a party with a constructive alternative.

The field is open, liberals.  And time is dwindling.

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan gives one of the best descriptions of the motivation behind the Tea Party movement to date.

For conservatives on the ground, it has often felt as if Democrats (and moderate Republicans) were always saying, “We should spend a trillion dollars,” and the Republican Party would respond, “No, too costly. How about $700 billion?” Conservatives on the ground are thinking, “How about nothing? How about we don’t spend more money but finally start cutting.”

That laser-like focus, to Noonan, is what connects all Tea Party-backed candidates this election cycle:

That is the context. Local tea parties seem—so far—not to be falling in love with the particular talents or background of their candidates. It’s more detached than that. They don’t say their candidates will be reflective, skilled in negotiations, a great senator, a Paul Douglas or Pat Moynihan or a sturdy Scoop Jackson. These qualities are not what they think are urgently needed. What they want is someone who will walk in, put her foot on the conservative end of the yardstick, and make everything slip down in that direction.

A vast swath of the American people understand the danger our country’s finances – and by extension, our experiment in self-rule – face.  The Tea Party movement is an important element in righting the ship of state before it’s too late.  Hopefully, congressional members owing the movement their election victories will display the fortitude necessary to say no to more spending.

The media often paint non-liberal legal thinkers with broad brush strokes, a failure of reporting that hides some very important distinctions between libertarians and conservatives.  That’s why Reason’s Damon Root does a public service in explaining the fault lines in right-of-center legal thinking that are emerging over the most recent gun rights case, McDonald vs. City of Chicago.  The Supreme Court’s decision could land any day, so before it does, make sure to check out Root’s cogent description of the politics behind the process of winning more freedom for individuals through litigation.

It’s definitely worth the read.

There’s a great article by Ned Ryun, courtesy of Red State, about the need to get conservatives and the movement they animate focused on taking back control of America, one local election at a time.  On a day when the Heritage Foundation is announcing a nationwide campaign to flex its muscles with members of Congress, Ryun’s American Majority is training candidates for school boards and state races.  We need both; especially when it comes to putting our principles into action.

Presumptive British Tory Prime Minister, David Cameron and French “conservative” President Nicholas Sarkozy are scheduled to meet when the latter comes to London.  Both are cut from the John McCain (R-AZ) “progressive” cloth when it comes to climate change, taxes, and civil liberties.  If the GOP wants to make good on its promising electoral campaigns this year, it should steer clear of Cameron and Sarkozy versions of conservatives and go for the real thing: substantive limits on spending and taxing, coupled with the comprehensive deregulation of government’s intrusion into civil society.  Like Ronald Reagan once said, we need bold colors, not pale pastels.