A warranty could help GOP win in '10

In his first year as president Bill Clinton, who had run as a centrist, was drawn into the new-left vortex of socialized healthcare, which led to a resounding defeat for Clinton and the Democrats in the 1994 mid-term elections. Current President Barack Obama too is attempting to reform healthcare and like Clinton has seen his popularity sink. Some political pundits are drawing comparisons between the two administrations and positing that democrats are setting themselves up for a bit of a spanking come 2010. It is, as Shirley Bassey sang, “all just a little bit of history repeating.” Or is it?

In 1994 the political right offered voters something more than simply criticism of the President. Republican members of the House of Representatives presented voters with the “Contract with America.” This document, signed by all but two Republican congressmen and all of the Republican congressional candidates, detailed the specific legislative action Republicans would take if the American people handed them the reigns of government. The contract was a “detailed agenda for national renewal, a written commitment with no fine print.”

At the time of this writing I am not aware of Republicans having any such detailed agenda nor, unfortunately, am I confident that there is one in the works. I have a recurring nightmare that we will all awake on January 1st with a President and Democrat congress weakened by continued economic malaise, a healthcare boondoggle and threats of huge energy taxes designed to save the planet only to be greeted with the Republican mantra of tax cuts – a tune that has become monotonous and rings rather hollow, due primarily to Republican complicity in building the ship that delivered us to these rocky economic shores.

And yet like 1994 over-reaching by the new left has provided Republicans with a huge political opportunity to perhaps retake the House of Representatives or at the very least deny Democrats their filibuster proof majority. But in order to convince voters that the right is prepared to drive domestic policy the GOP needs more than complaints and criticism; they must present a committed and detailed agenda.

Rather than call it a “Contract with America,” which seems a bit old hat, we can perhaps refer to this as a Political Warranty – a warranty that if the GOP is returned to power they will be bound to a short-list legislative agenda aimed at delivering true healthcare reform, true education reform and truly trying to realize a post racial America.

I am not talking about rhetoric or an articulation of principles. Alas, Republicans are all too adept at articulating principles; they have as of late been rather lackluster in conveying specific policy.

What is the specific legislative action the GOP is going to take to increase competition in health care? How willing is the GOP to buck the system and remove barriers to insurance purchases across state lines? To removing obstacles to new insurance companies entering the industry? How committed is the GOP to instituting real tort reform? True price and quality transparency? Are they willing to butt heads with the AMA and make it easier to build new medical schools in order to train more doctors?

Republicans talk about education reform, but what is the specific legislative action they promise to take in order to remove decisions about k-12 education out of the pockets of the bureaucrats and back into the hands of parents? How will they encourage innovation? How will they rebuild our vocational schools to meet the needs of the 21st century?

Finally, criticism of the President for not moving the nation beyond race means very little without a GOP re-commitment to being the post racial party. Republicans must warranty that they will be most committed to legislation that furthers the battle against discrimination of all kinds. Further the warranty must make it clear that the party will not tolerate bigotry of any sort within its ranks.

I will leave it to others more politically astute than I to fill in the blanks, but the questions must be answered. The GOP has a real opportunity to become the true party of reform, but history will not simply repeat itself without a little nudge.

Joseph C. Phillips is the author of “He Talk Like A White Boy” available wherever books are sold.

Afraid of our own government?

We have a new president attempting to move the country his way--to the left. We hear about divisive town halls and tea parties with many opposing "his way". We observe the liberal press and the Democrat spokespeople express extreme accusations of "terrorism" against any who oppose them. We see a radical White House advisor, Mr. Van Jones, resign noisily, after Fox News' Glenn Beck "outs" him for his radical views and coarse words. The Sunday news programs all question why the Democrats are having difficulty passing their health care bill despite their majorities in both houses of Congress.With his sinking polls, we all wonder what President Obama will say on the subject Wednesday night, when he speaks to us.

What is becoming apparant is a certain fear of this government by the American people. Fear because there are no jobs. Fear because of the deficits. Fear because our government now owns General Motors, and AIG. Fear because of what health care as proposed, will cost us. Fear of a quagmire in Afganistan. Fear because of unfunded pensions and bank failures and out of control spending, corruption and falling real estate values. If the American people indeed fear their own government, then it is reasonable to expect a good house cleaning in Washington. Let it be so.

Democrats socialistic? Of course they are

The greatest single weapon in the Democratic Party’s arsenal has been its ability to confuse the voters. Even though it has practically defined itself since the 1930s as the party of Big Government, with high taxes and spending, massive regulation and intervention, and continual encroachment on private property, its leaders and spokesmen have vehemently denied that their policies amount to socialism. But why? Is socialism such a bad thing? Maybe not if you advocate socialistic policies, but maybe so if calling something by its right name will antagonize the voters and lose their support. That’s been the predicament of the Democrats as they consistently seek to solve real or imaginary problems with government programs and income redistribution, rather than abiding by the Constitution’s protections for free trade and commerce.

There’s no point in trying to pin the socialistic tail on the Democratic donkey when the donkey disowns it. Better to define our terms and decide the question based on the relevant principles and salient facts, rather than accusations or denials.

The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines socialism as follows: 1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state 

Governmental ownership of production and distribution of goods rather than private property, then, is the essence of socialism. This contrasts with the limited government and largely unfettered trade and commerce by individuals and corporations that have distinguished the United States of America.

How then do we understand the Obama Administration’s takeover of banks and other financial institutions, automobile companies and the current proposal to take over the health insurance industry? Plainly, these are all socialistic measures, not just because Republicans say so but because they are examples of what socialism is.

In Europe, where nationalized health care has long been in effect, along with nationalized heavy industry and mining, socialism is more "advanced" than in the United States. When President Obama says that he wants to "transform" America, following the European model is what he has in mind.

Socialists here and in Europe are not enemies of government by the people, or at least they have no intention of replacing it with any sort of dictatorship. During the many decades that they have promoted socialism, they have been at great pains to distinguish themselves from Marxists, who have advocated violent overthrow of so-called "bourgeois" (middle class) democracies and replacement by the "dictatorship of the proletariat."

The difference has turned on very different evaluations of modern democratic government. The Marxists believe that western democracies are a sham, allegedly dominated by the evil capitalists who manipulate the people by money and influence. These corporate chieftains will not, Marxists say, willingly give up their rule, so the only way to change things is through violent revolution.

Marxists have as much scorn for democratic socialists as they do capitalists for their supposedly naive belief that peaceful change is possible, if not their covert cooperation with the enemies of the people. But the democratic socialists believe that, through persuasion and effective politics, the majority can be brought around to socialism without violent revolution, and they now have several decades of success here and in other Western countries to prove it.

However, in spite of two great waves of socialism in America via the New Deal (NRA, AAA, social security) and the Great Society (war on poverty, medicare, racial quotas), and the wave now being stirred up by the Obama Administration, a majority of Americans still prefer limited government and free trade and commerce. If there is one overriding reason for this, I would maintain it is their firm belief that they retain the capacity to govern themselves.

That is why, according to recent public opinion polls, a.majority now views unfavorably the President they elected last fall. They have been shown by their harsh, bitter experience with the first few months of the new administration that the Democrats are not the political party of the little guy but of Big Government.

This emerging majority for a restoration of fundamental American principles of government may or may not be put off by Democratic denials of the party’s commitment to socialism, but they know that party stands for policies that threaten their health care, their contracts and their private property. Truly, socialism is the right name for those policies.

Wheels coming off Obama Express

(Nantucket) If the recession wasn’t enough, the summer’s unprecedented bad weather has added to this island's woes. Also experiencing very heavy weather these days is the Democratic Party and it looks like getting worse for them before it gets better. The roots of Democratic disarray lie in one very great success and one huge strategic mistake. Oddly the same man bears a principal responsibility for both.

Inside the Beltway there is wide consensus that Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is a really smart guy and that more than any one person he is the principal architect of Democratic Party strategy. While still an Illinois Congressman he gained great acclaim as the Chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Emanuel shrewdly grasped that if Democrats were to capture control of Congress they couldn’t run liberals everywhere. Accordingly he recruited an excellent cadre of moderately conservative candidates to run in Republican leaning districts and got George Soros and others to insure that they were very well funded.

The result-aided greatly by an unpopular war and a stumbling economy- was that in 2006 and 2008 dozens of “safe” Republican seats fell to the Democrats who gained control of Congress for the first time in twelve years.

Of this group of newly minted Democratic congressmen- currently numbering 52- many (22) but not most were from the South. California and Pennsylvania had the largest representation. Collectively they are known as the now famous “Blue Dogs”.

Once elected it was assumed that the presumptively grateful Blue Dogs could easily be transformed into Lap Dogs for Nancy Pelosi. On routine votes this proved true but on high visibility votes- issues their home folks really cared about-complications arose.

The first big test was the “Stimulus” vote. Not too subtly threatened by party “whips” most (40) Blue Dogs toed the line and the bill passed comfortably. However as the ineffectiveness of the Stimulus became more evident those 40 had a lot of trouble back home explaining their vote for a 1300 page pork laden bill they hadn’t even read.

The second big test was the infamous “Cap and Trade(Tax)” bill where most Blue Dogs were among the 44 Democrats who defied the party’s left-wing leadership and voted No. Though the bill passed by a razor thin 7 vote margin it was such a mess- riddled with exceptions, exemptions, payoffs, and obfuscations- that the Senate refused to even take it up, thus leaving over 200 Democrats to answer for an unpopular vote that the “Global Warming” ideologues Pelosi and Obama never should have demanded.

All of this set the stage for a full scale Blue Dog revolt in response to the Pelosi/ Obama insistence on passing health care “reform” before the August recess. Having had their arms twisted on the Stimulus, then broken on the tax raising/economy killing Cap and Trade votes, the Blue dogs –most of them elected by very narrow margins- saw their approval numbers back home falling even faster than Obama’s.

Thus faced with the prospect of electoral extinction, the Blue Dogs en masse effectively “crossed the aisle” to join Republicans and bring health care reform (a.k.a. Government seizure of one sixth of the U.S. economy) to a screeching halt.

So, in a supreme irony this historic break-up of the Democratic House majority was triggered by the very same individuals who made that majority possible.

All this happened because Emanuel made a huge strategic mistake in acting on his famous aphorism that “a crisis is too good a thing to waste”. Believing that they could hype and exploit fears about the economic crisis (“Another Great Depression!) and the soaring early popularity of Obama in a way that would allow swiftly ramming through the most radical and expensive legislative agenda in history without people or even Congressmen understanding that they had given birth to a Socialist America, Emanuel and his fellow Democrats audaciously gambled that a strategy of stealth, speed, and deception could in less than a year deliver our country into that “Brave New World” that generations of liberals have yearned for.

Their great gamble has been lost. The American people have won. Perilous days yet remain ahead, but now a new kind of “Hope and Change” comes into view. Let Freedom Ring!

William Moloney’s columns have appeared in the Wall St Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, Washington Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post.

Public assemblies, American style

The Obama Administration has been the occasion for numerous Tea Parties and Town Hall Meetings, which are different species of the genus public assembly.  How they are seen and understood depends a great deal on one’s point of view. As American government is based on the consent of the governed, it is perfectly appropriate and even necessary that public officials be chosen in periodic elections and that the people be free to express their views publicly. While the design of the Constitution is to avoid rule by the people in their collective capacity, relying rather on elected representatives, the First Amendment explicitly guarantees the right of the people to assemble peacefully for redress of grievances.

In our nation’s history, not a few of those public assemblies have been considerably less than peaceful, whether they were in opposition to taxes on whiskey, Jay’s treaty with Great Britain, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, abolition of slavery, the Civil War draft, industrial lockouts, World War I, racial segregation, the Vietnam War or the Iraq War.

Peaceful protest should always have the full protection of the law, and violent protests should be suppressed. The difficulty is that those rioting invariably see themselves as greater in authority than public officials, and the latter sometimes sympathize with the rioters’ goals, if not their means.

It is not surprising that the widespread Tea Parties that protested the record levels of taxing and spending by the Obama Administration should be viewed favorably by Republicans and unfavorably by Democrats. By the same token, the Town Hall Meetings called by the President and a number of Democratic Congresspersons and Senators are looked upon by Republicans as stage-managed affairs, lacking legitimacy.

So some Democrats supportive of Obama showed up to put a damper on the Tea Parties, and evidently more persons–of both parties–critical of the President, particularly his health care plan, have shown up at the Town Hall Meetings. Both parties clearly seek to establish their viewpoint as the authentic voice of the American people and the opposing view as merely a minority faction.

Although I welcomed the Tea Parties and look upon Democrat Town Hall Meetings with suspicion, I cannot say that I am pleased that more and more citizens are taking their grievances so noisily into public places and meeting halls. A major contributor to this development is the rise of Big Government, which treats opposition to its goals and methods as essentially illegitimate.

Fortunately, this year’s protests lack the violence that characterized the radical left’s opposition to the War in Vietnam, when both public officials and private citizens were targeted for bombs by the likes of the Weathermen, of which Obama friends Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dorn were members.

It is always a challenge for politicians to deal with tumultuous assemblies with a combination of good humor and firmness, granting the legality of the protest but seeking to defuse its passion and restore civil discourse. Politicians slandering citizens angry over the government’s less than candid explanation of its programs are pouring fuel on the fire.

This present situation is not unlike that of medieval Europe, ruled by monarchs and priests, in which ordinary people had no say and whose only form of protest was armed rebellion. It is only when citizens finally won the right to elect their leaders that the frequent resort to mob violence was no longer necessary.

But the longer that large, intrusive and costly bureaucratic structures dominate our lives, and render citizens powerless, the more those otherwise not inclined to angry outbursts will feel compelled to vent their spleen at the persons they chose to make their laws.

Far better, though, that we take advantage of constitutional structures that enable the people to vote for or against those persons they believe do–or do not–have the best interests of the nation at heart.

Democrats have long believed that, just as they have a monopoly on holding public office, they alone have reason to protest, even violently, if they feel strongly enough. Republicans more commonly look upon public office as a temporary calling and reluctantly take part in public protests.

And while leading Democrats have attributed base motives to Republican protestors (special interests, Ku Klux Klan members and even Nazis), the latter have not gone beyond labeling Democrats (accurately) as big taxers and spenders, socialists and petty tyrants.

We have an opportunity to restore government by the people in the 2010 Congressional elections and the 2012 Presidential election. That’s where the protests will really count.