Perspective on McCain

Arapahoe County is obviously Romney country, based on his 66% sweep in yesterday's caucus, said GOP county chairman Nathan Chambers at a morning-after breakfast with party activists. But Chambers added that despite his deep differences with John McCain on key policy issues, he'll do everything possible to unify our side behind Mac if the nomination goes his way. Applause in the packed room was loud and long, disagreement was small.

I see it the same way, though with acute indigestion and a raging migraine. "Romney over any Republican if possible, McCain over any Democrat if necessary," is my unjoyous mantra for 2008.

Two friends whom I respect, Vince Carroll of the Rocky's editorial page and Richard Allen of the Reagan inner circle from 1977 onward (who now lives in Denver), appealed for perspective on Mac the Maverick in pieces published today. They give an idea of the soul-searching among Republicans on the right, at this moment of potential fracture in the party.

Carroll's column, "McCain is No Liberal," after acknowledging the senator's many blatant betrayals of conservatism, takes issue with Laura Ingraham's assertion that it's a record any liberal could run on. No liberal, he says,

"would be proud to run on a lifetime rating of 82 from the American Conservative Union, or even the relatively more centrist rating of 65 he compiled in 2006. A liberal would be mortified at such baggage, although no liberal actually has any such rating. More typically, liberals rate in the single digits on the ACU scorecard. Hillary Clinton's lifetime index is nine, for example, with a 2006 rating of eight - the same as Barack Obama's."

Carroll then gives a 10-point rundown on McCain's voting record from Acuratings.org, concluding:

"The animus some conservatives harbor for McCain is not only a reaction to his policies, of course, but also to the contempt he has betrayed on occasion for conservatives themselves. But these irreconcilable differences should not obscure the fact that the McCain record contrasts sharply in a number of areas with both Clinton's and Obama's - should it come to such a comparison in the fall."

Dick Allen was either the initiator or merely the first signer alphabetically -- I don't know which -- on an open letter entitled "Reaganauts for McCain," circulated widely by email and now posted on Townhall.com. Signing with him, in order of their prominence, were Jack Kemp, Peter Hannaford, Frank Donatelli, and Craig Shirley, who all worked with Ronald Reagan during or before his presidency, and who among them have authored seven books about him.

The five co-signers attempt to make the case that John McCain, just like the Gipper (who would have turned 97 today, incidentally) is a break-the-mold agent of Republican renewal for a new time. While I don't find their argument very persuasive, I hold their credentials in high esteem. Near the end of the short manifesto they write:

"Some fellow conservatives find it hard forgive past positions on campaign finance or other matters. When you stop to reflect, however, with whom--among those out there--are we going to be more secure in terms of domestic security than with John McCain? Who has greater understanding of and experience with the foreign policy and national security challenges we will face than John McCain?"

With America at war against a fanatically determined enemy, one can't dismiss this point out of hand. When next I talk with Dick Allen, though -- perhaps on Backbone Radio, where's he is a regular guest -- I want to press him on the difficulty of "forgiving past positions" when the man who took them remains stubbornly and arrogantly committed to them even now.

I also want to query Allen, national security hawk par excellence, about the difficulty of extracting intelligence from radical Jihadist fighters under such McCain-sponsored handicaps as banning harsh interrogation and closing Guantanamo.

And so much more, so much more. But all that in good time. For today, I agree with Richard Allen, Jack Kemp, Vince Carroll, and the rest to this extent at least: "McCain over any Democrat if necessary." But I'm not yet ready to abandon the first half of that formula: "Romney over any Republican if possible."

Caucus Night: Two Views

My friends John Wren and Joshua Sharf recorded half-full and half-empty impressions of Colorado's caucus system after the big night on Tuesday. Before coming to what each had to say, here's my two cents' worth: Though Wren's evocation of progressivism and the 1912 hinge point between TR and Wilson -- both too similar to McCain and Clinton for my taste -- is not persuasive, he's right that caucuses are better than the media- and money-driven direct primary system that Coloradans shied from in that 2002 ballot fight.

But Sharf is also right that the caucuses will remain largely useless, and hence more and more difficult to sustain, unless parties do a much better job of realizing the grassroots gatherings' potential for civic education and involvement.

To be more exact, it's our party, the Republicans, who have to do a better job of that. The Democrats, far ahead of us in para-party organizing and in media/money alliances, would be quite happy to see caucuses fade away in favor of the ultra-progressive direct primary model that Rutt Bridges tried to ram through in 2002.

And now, in the two men's own words...

CELEBRATE THE GRASSROOTS REBIRTH By John Wren

A few critical voices have complained about some of the negative aspects of last night's Colorado Caucus, our ritual every other year since 1912 when the Teddy Roosevelt progressive reforms brought us our current system. Some even call for the elimination of our caucus-assembly system and a return to our pre-1912 ways.

Thomas Jefferson would have preferred that we not have political parties. But he quickly realized that Alexander Hamilton would win every election unless an opposition party was formed. So the two party system that has served us so well for these 200+ years was born. (Unaffiliated voters and 3rd parties have a valid useful place in our system, but it is the two major parties that almost always produce winning campaigns.)

Some say there is no difference between the two parties. This is a sign of health; they are both competing for the majority of voters. Just as supply and demand create an equilibrium price, when the system is healthy Democrats and Republicans create elected government officials who best represent the true will of the people.

The Colorado Caucus is the full flowering of this representative system, but the flowers have wilted in recent decades because of the declining levels of participation and misguided (or devious) party leaders who have tried to bring the system that has been entrusted to their care to an end.

Powerful forces would like to kill the grassroots in Colorado, and return to the powerful elites to their pre-1912 back rooms.

Our caucus-assembly system for nominating to the primary ballot is not perfect. It takes more time, some just aren’t able to attend for various reasons, etc. But these shortcomings are more than compensated for by the fact that it gives the common person a strong voice in our government, something the direct primary just does not do.

People who got involved for the first time last night can now use the leverage of the party system to come back in future years and use the leverage of their party to get on the primary ballot with a fair chance of becoming their party’s nominee in the general election. Doing this without the caucus system is much more expensive, out of the reach of most people.

So the question is this: Is strengthening the voice of the common person worth it? I say yes it is. And 60% of the people in Colorado agreed in 2002 when the question was on the ballot and everyone got a chance to voice their opinion. Let’s not be misled now by the whining voices of a few slackers and the manipulation of the elite.

Wake up Colorado! Celebrate the victory of last night’s massive turnout. Let this day mark a new dawning, the rebirth of the true grassroots in Colorado.

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WHAT THE HELL WERE WE VOTING FOR? By Joshua Sharf

A word to the wise know-it-alls who run the Denver Republican Party.

Organize. A little.

For one thing, please try to hold the caucuses in a place where there's some parking. Secondly, the Hillary! posters on the outside of the hall were cute, perhaps a reminder of why we were all there. Oh, we got a better turnout than we did two years ago - my precinct showed 8 voters, compared to 3 in 2006. But then, Denver Republicans are a somewhat more...select...crowd, anyway.

But of the 8 people there, I was the only one who had gone through the process before, and I was the only one who even vaguely understood what the hell we were voting for, and only then because Dick Wadhams was on the show Sunday night explaining it. I'm still not sure I understand the multi-county vs. single-county State Representative and State Senate Assemblies.

There was absolutely no reason why someone didn't stand up on the stage and explain to the assembled the three-tiered Assembly system, and what the Presidential Preference Poll actually meant. The only reason was that the County party seemingly sent exactly one District official, who was clearly overworked.

You want to build the party? Use the caucuses as a chance to educate those who are there about this 19-Century [or early 20th-Century, according to Wren - Ed.] process we continue to use. I have no objections to using it, but when you leave those who do bother to show up confused and unsure what they just voted for, you're guaranteeing they won't come back next time. By turning what should be an exercise in party-building into an exercise in frustration, the party missed yet another critical opportunity to engage what should be its most active supporters.

Cross-posted from View from a Height at JSharf.com and Gang of Four at PoliticsWest.com

What tent cities, Rep. Paul?

"Tent cities on the edge of empty neighborhoods" are cited by Congressman Ron Paul as evidence that "now the crisis has come" for America's economy, as he has long warned. He makes the claim in his own words on TV and radio spots for his presidential campaign, airing in Colorado ahead of the Feb. 5 caucuses. It's a dramatic and powerful image, evoking the darkest days of the Great Depression. But how valid is it? If there were any sort of national outbreak of Bushervilles resulting from the subprime mortgage mess, you can be sure major media organizations would be all over it. But a web search turns up no evidence of same -- even if an outbreak is defined to mean two or more.

Google "tent cities" and you come up with exactly one (1) relevant result, a YouTube video depicting some tents pitched in Southern California "after the housing bubble burst." The only other search results from current news, a cluster of church-sponsored homeless encampments in Seattle and 84 shantytowns erected across the country by deaf activists upset about Gallaudet College, don't seem relevant to the candidate's generalization.

Like Ron Paul, I sympathize with the hardship of those who have lost their homes through unwise borrowing. But also like him (presuming the sincerity of his free-market professions) I can't blame that unwisdom on anyone but the borrowers themselves. For Rep. Paul to blame policymakers and regulators, as these ads imply, would be unworthy of him as a small-government constitutionalist and apostle of personal responsibility.

What am I missing here? Maybe you Pauliacs can tell me. Absent some documentation of numerous tent cities and some theory of liberals' responsibility for them, your man's broad hint to voters that as President he, of all people, would have an interventionist plan to remedy or prevent mortgage foreclosures leaves me with the uneasy feeling of intellectual dishonesty bordering on demagoguery.

Such over-claiming hurts the credibility of an honorable man who is right about a lot of things, economically and politically. It makes him sound like just another of those doomsayers and hard-money pessimists who have correctly predicted 13 out of the last three recessions.

Disclosure: I will be advocating for Mitt Romney when I chair my precinct caucus in Centennial on Tuesday night.

Obama is no JFK

It is a testament to how shallow our politics have become that an op-ed by Caroline Kennedy appears in the New York Times comparing Barack Obama to her father, John Kennedy. "A President Like My Father" cites Obama's ability to bring hope to the American people and inspire them to get involved in our collective future. Of Obama, she writes "I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans". It may be understandable that Caroline Kennedy sees her father as an inspiring, towering figure in American history -- a man of great ideals who could move the nation. She was a young girl not quite six years old when her father was struck down by an assassin's bullet -- and her understanding of her father's life and legacy is unavoidably tied to the memories of "Camelot" as told to her through the eyes of ordinary Americans who were forever changed by his death. John Kennedy is now inexorably intertwined with his image as a new generation of leader, young, articulate, fresh -- with a classy wife in Jackie and two young children in the White House. It was then, and remains now, a tremendously attractive image.

On this cursory level, perhaps, you can make a comparison of Kennedy and Obama as young, urbane, well-educated and handsome leaders. They both exude a sense of hope and promise for a new generation of leadership to take over the entrenched interests in Washington. And both use soaring rhetoric that can be truly inspiring. That was evident again last night in Obama's victory speech in South Carolina. Like Kennedy, he can certainly turn a phrase.

But that's as far as the comparison goes. On substance, Kennedy and Obama are worlds apart. Kennedy was a liberal of the old school -- a realist who understood that certain threats to America needed to be met with blunt force, and who believed that the use of American power for good in the world was at its core a noble, generous act. It was Kennedy who said this in his first inaugural address:

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

Such a sweeping affirmation of the importance of America's role in securing liberty was at the core of Kennedy's foreign policy. This was borne out, overtly and covertly, in a series of military moves during his presidency: in the Bay of Pigs designed to secure Castro's overthrow, the Berlin Airlift that brought needed food and medicine after the Soviet blockade of the city, the blockade of Soviet ships in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the gradual but inexorable escalation of our military commitment to South Vietnam. In each of these cases, the goal was to maintain US security and to establish democracy in the place of a socialist brand of totalianarism, even at the cost of American lives. Kennedy was an interventionist; by today's liberal standards, he'd be a conservative hawk -- just to the left of Dick Cheney.

Obama, on the other hand, embodies none of Kennedy's commitment to liberty. He's hung much of his campaign on his opposition to the Iraq War -- a war that liberated 25 million Iraqis from tyranny and that is attempting to establish a democracy in the heart of the Middle East. While Obama is on the record as saying that he doesn't "oppose all wars" and has called for an increase of US troops in Afghanistan, he views the current struggle against terrorism as a series of skirmishes in the shadows, rather than a war against a world-wide movement of Islamic extremism. He seeks to withdraw troops from Iraq immediately, even though we now have a real chance at showing Al Qaeda that Iraq can be a success despite its best efforts at destroying it. He is on record as wanting to negotiate directly with Iran and Syria to help bring "stability to Iraq", though the evidence is clear that both Syria and Iran are responsible for the killing of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians with impunity. In sum, Obama is typical of the Left who see negotiation as a panacea, and who believe the fight against terrorism is really a law enforcement issue -- a sporadic crime wave rather than a strategic struggle for the future.

Caroline Kennedy is at least half right -- Obama is a liberal in the mold of a Kennedy -- except that it is Teddy, not Jack. He's missing JFK's conviction that our current fight against Islamic radicalism is akin to the struggle against communism that Kennedy waged during the Cold War -- and which would require a similar, methodical, steadfast commitment to "bear any burden" in ensuring the triumph of democracy and freedom.

At first glance he may look the part. But, if you dig beyond the shallow similarities, Barack Obama is no Jack Kennedy.

It killed them to stand

Washington emergency rooms were swarmed last night with Democratic congressmen and senators experiencing acute joint pain from unwillingly giving repeated standing ovations during President Bush's State of the Union address. With a national television audience looking on, majority Democrats were forced to their feet again and again to avoid looking stupid when Bush spoke of winning in Afghanistan, persisting in Iraq, having Al Qaida on the run, facing down Iran, and bringing home 20,000 troops.

Cardiac specialists from Rose Hospital told Politics West that Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid, and members of their caucuses were fortunate that partisanship and ideology prevented them from standing or applauding at number of other points in Bush's speech, however.

The stress of having to acknowledge his superior logic on such issues as making the tax cuts permanent, expanding consumer choice in health care, pursuing stem cell research without destroying embryos, and authorizing surveillance of terrorists could have felled many Democrats with heart failure, the specialists said.

The President and Vice President, meanwhile, were given Botox shots by White House doctors to relieve extreme facial fatigue -- after struggling for most of the hour to suppress broad grins at the Dems' persistent discomfort, whether sitting or standing.