“General Gridlock”: Kentucky-Style Politics At Its Weirdest, Mitch McConnell Gets Barbecued
Let’s start with records, and not the political kind. The sheer tonnage of pulled sinew at the annual Fancy Farm barbecue picnic is cited in the Guinness Book of World Records — this year, 8,500 pounds of mutton and 9,500 pounds of pork, or nine tons of meat, every last shred smoked onsite in a battery of cement pits the size of a football field.
If Sen. Mitch McConnell loses his reelection bid in 2014, his downfall officially began here, in the far western Purchase region of Kentucky, where for the last 133 years political adversaries have traded barbs on a small stage in the country hamlet of Fancy Farm. The picnic kicks off and frames every major political race in the Commonwealth, a throwback to the long-gone days of unscripted hot-around-the-collar partisan rallies, a sweaty, boisterous, old-fashioned political speaking slugfest and barbecue pig-out.
As a native Kentuckian, I always had Fancy Farm on my radar as potentially interesting to attend, on a lark. My interest perked in ‘08, when it was rumored Barack Obama might schedule an appearance during his campaign; it’s clear to me now that it wouldn’t have been wise strategy for a presidential candidate, assuming it was ever under serious consideration. The level of decorum required of speakers at Fancy Farm is so low that it’s considered only marginally tacky for Ed Marksberry, an Owensboro contractor running in the Democratic primary and the least of McConnell’s threats from the left, to state the cruel but undeniable truth about the 71-year-old minority leader’s appearance (“People say he looks like a turtle!”) and make a political joke at the expense of his wattle (“After years of kissing the butts of corporate elites, he rubbed his chin right off!”). People cheer and jeer, journalists scribble in their notebooks. This year, I was curious to hear Alison Lundergan Grimes, the 34-year-old secretary of state who, having painted only the broadest of policy brushstrokes in the primary, has the full backing of the Democratic National Committee and endorsements from the likes of Bill Clinton and actress/activist Ashley Judd.
Grimes has nicknamed her campaign “Team Switch,” a wry response to “Team Mitch,” and her strategy out of the gate, unsurprisingly in this red state, is to distance herself from Obama. Her staffers wear “I ♥ Coal” stickers; in her only public appearance prior to Fancy Farm, aside from her candidacy announcement, she said that she “disagrees” with Obama on coal, without elaborating further. The sad truth is, it might be impossible to win in Kentucky without being at least lukewarm toward coal (not that I’m giving her an excuse, except that I kinda am). Her campaign sells stylish V-neck T-shirts and handsome lapel pins that should appeal well to women, a demographic she intends to clean up on, and her supporters have already shortened her seven-syllable name to “ALG.” For barnstorming the Commonwealth while General Gridlock is back in Washington, she’s got a newish-looking campaign bus with a huge image of her pearly white smile. Onstage, while the male politicians and candidates appear sweaty and stressed out in open-neck button-downs (the exception is McConnell, who looks bored), ALG exudes composure seated between her husband and grandma in a sleeveless red dress, smiling down beatifically upon her flock.
Organizers from St. Jerome Catholic Church say 10,000 to 12,000 people attend Fancy Farm every year. The racial demographic is overwhelmingly white — I counted only eight black people on the day, there to support ALG. Had Obama showed in ‘08, the scene might have been more diverse, if only for the year. The event raises a whopping $250,000 for St. Jerome, a buttermilk-colored church on a hill overlooking the town, which is pocked with political signs for the weekend, or perhaps they’ll be there until the election 15 months hence. To get to Fancy Farm from Louisville, where I’m from, you take I-24 West and pass the conjoined 184-mile Kentucky Lake and 118-mile Lake Barkley, on which pleasure-craft (pontoons and houseboats) and sport-craft (speedboats, jet skis and a sort of hybrid jet-ski-boat called Sea-Doo’s) tie together in inlets to form floating party enclaves, aka redneck yacht clubs. No, I didn’t make that up, the rednecks themselves did. Some of the vessels fly black flags that say “Friends of Coal,” and because the lakes are used by inland barges to access the Tennessee River and the Ohio, you may see a jet-ski buzzing around a mile-long barge piled high with black gold.
You also drive past the pluming stacks of the Shawnee Fossil Plant on the banks of the Ohio, a coal-fired steam plant that provides electricity to the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, a uranium enrichment facility with technology dating back to the ‘50s. Over his 28 years in office, McConnell has found ways to divert federal dollars to keep the facility open despite it being a major polluter and a sharp decline in demand for enriched uranium since the Cold War ended. Now that the behemoth anachronism is finally scheduled to shutter — it sucks down 12 percent of the state’s electricity, or more than the whole city of Louisville — approximately 1,100 employees will lose their jobs, and Democrats are accusing McConnell of neglect. Attorney General Jack Conway, a Democrat with gubernatorial aspirations, is threatening to file suit against the federal government if the cleanup isn’t done right.
The earliest arriving picnickers grab a coveted seat beneath the shelter, which provides a good view of the stage, and of course it’s far nicer to sit in the shade, though life under the shelter is neither relaxing nor comfortable. Folks under the shelter are obliged to chant and heckle not only prior to, but during the political speeches, meaning the P.A. system is turned up loud enough for the audience to hear over itself, the speakers blaring at close range into the roped-off media area in front of the stage. The seating configuration entails risers around the perimeter and rows of chairs on the floor, and the crowd is split down the middle between conservatives/Tea-Partyers and liberals, so there’s shouting both across the shelter and up toward the stage. The vast majority of conservatives wear red T-shirts that say “Team Mitch.”
Team Mitchers hold signs on long sticks that on one side show an unflattering picture of ALG and on the other, Obama — they “twizzle” the images back and forth. Liberal ALG supporters have signs that say “Ditch Mitch” (a slogan dating back to the ‘80s) and “I Don’t Scare Easy” (in reference to Mitch’s well-earned reputation for mudslinging and his $10 million war chest). There’s a woman for ALG who holds up a Lambchop-like sock puppet, and I’m fairly certain she’s saying “bah bah bah” during speeches by conservatives, or else it’s “blah blah blah.”
In brazen violation of a Fancy Farm rule outlawing noisemakers, Tea Partyers ring bells in support of Tea Party-ish/Republican candidate Matt Bevin, a Louisville businessman whose family owns a bell manufacturing business in East Hampton. An authentic Tea Partyer, dressed in Revolutionary War garb, leads chants through a megaphone prior to the speaking — this is Paul Johnson of Walton, Ky., and he bears a striking resemblance to Gen. George Washington, no joke. He has people on Team Mitch chanting, “Hey, hey, hi ho, the IRS must go!” This segues rather seamlessly into “Go, Mitch, go!” Some of the more cynical Team Mitchers tell Johnson to get off his sinking ship. From the liberal side comes, “I don’t know what you’ve been told, Mitch McConnell has got to go!” And then, next thing you know, everyone under the shelter is singing “God Bless America.”
Also onstage is Rep. Ed. Whitefield, R-Hopkinsville, and state agriculture commissioner James Comer (a Republican with gubernatorial aspirations), and state auditor Adam Edelen (another Democrat with gubernatorial aspirations), and assorted other elected officials who won’t get a chance to speak. Every speaker gets cheered and jeered, regardless, if for no other reason than for the sheer fun of it. Because Fancy Farm is in Graves County, which is a dry county in what they like to call God’s Country, the picnic makes not a dime on alcohol sales, meaning everyone there is sober. Most drink $1 soda bottles of Sun Drop, “The Newest Player in Citrus,” as signs say all around the picnic grounds. St. Jerome’s $250,000 in revenue, as best I could tell, comes from the sale of $3 barbecue sandwiches, $5 raffle tickets for a Dodge pickup, $10 Fancy Farm T-shirts featuring smiley pigs, an all-day bingo marathon, a 5K race the evening before, and a modest collection of carnival games, including a child-size dunking booth. There’s also a $15 ticket to an all-you-can-eat air-conditioned buffet sponsored by the Knights of Columbus.
It’s said that Fancy Farm won’t necessarily make a politician, but it can certainly help break one. Notable no-shows are lampooned onstage and reported in newspapers across the Commonwealth. Rand Paul took it on the chin from ALG for “spending the weekend with his loved ones: the Tea Party members in Iowa.” And if a politician does show, he or she runs the risk of things getting out of hand. In ‘09, Conway, running for the U.S. Senate seat of retiring Republican Jim Bunning, had a profanity laced meltdown. In ‘98, McConnell delivered a vitriolic speech criticizing Democrat Scotty Baesler, who was running for Senate against Bunning. McConnell’s speech was so vicious that it impelled the normally cool and collected Baesler to blow a gasket during his own speech. His gesticulations and facial contortions didn’t translate well on videotape, especially not in slow motion set to classical music by Wagner — Adolf Hitler’s favorite composer. Such was the advertisement Bunning ran, on the recommendation of McConnell.
Prior to the speeches, St. Jerome’s chief picnic organizer and press liaison, Mark Wilson, gives a brief primer on Fancy Farm’s history. Past speakers include George Wallace (when a flashbulb went off with a crack, he supposedly flinched and told the photographer, “I’m a little gun shy”) and Al Gore (we all know how that ended). I could hear the love in Wilson’s voice for both his church and the event itself — he tells everyone there’s a museum being planned “on these hallowed grounds.” He also signs mass emails to the press corps, “God Bless all of you and Happy Politics!” Before singing “My Old Kentucky Home,” a gentleman from St. Jerome’s tells the crowd that if we don’t know the words to just hum along, and jokes that he’ll do the same, except that he’s not joking, he’s actually previewing what’s going to happen. He not only forgets the words, he takes his own advice, humming along into the mic. The National Anthem is sung by a girl who looks about 11 — she gets through it flawlessly. The moderator for the event, Ferrell Wellman, hosts a talk show about state politics on PBS. A bear of a man, he bellows out intros to each speaker like a ring announcer before a prizefight. He also goes over the ground rules, telling the crowd, “This isn’t the World Cup,” meaning no noise makers such as vuvuzelas, the brightly colored plastic horns that sound like a swarm of killer bees. Speaking order is determined by seniority for elected officials and coin flip for candidates, and the speeches (time allotments of five and six minutes) are clocked by state Rep. Gerald Watkins, who wears a track-and-field-grade stopwatch around his neck.
Most speakers begin with a few scripted zingers to satisfy their supporters, and then quickly outline a bit of policy while reacting to hecklers in a good-natured but firm way. For instance, McConnell tells the liberal side, “Y’all came down here just to push me around,” and it sounds both accusatory and playful. The senior senator is the first speaker, and he opens with a zinger intended to cast ALG as a privileged daddy’s girl, the only time he’ll deign to mention her in his speech: “I want to say how nice it is to see [former Kentucky Democratic chairman] Jerry Lundergan back in the game. Like the loyal Democrat he is, he’s taking orders from the Obama campaign about how to run his daughter’s campaign.” And then punch line: “They told him to make a pitch on the Internet for the women’s vote and he sent a check to Anthony Weiner.”
The Team Mitchers laugh and shout approval, and then the Senate minority leader goes into his boilerplate criticisms of Obama, making sure to mention all the ways he’s prevented the president from ending the world as we know it. Most of his speech is about the ways he has “stopped” Obama from legislating disaster for the American people — a depressing trip down memory lane, and remarkable to hear just how perverted the man has become regarding his legacy. His supporters boo when ALG supporters accuse him of being an obstructionist. “We’re not just deciding who runs Kentucky,” he warbles down to the crowd. “We’re going to be deciding who runs the Senate.”
Bevin mounts a furious attack on McConnell, ticking off zinger after zinger and telling his supporters that their bells are tolling for McConnell: “… ask not for whom the bells toll, Senator. They toll for you!” McConnell has been quick to dismiss Bevin as nothing more than a dilettante nuisance, but onstage at Fancy Farm, he has the look and tenor of a real candidate. At the very least he could weaken Team Mitch in the primary, and burn up a lot of their cash.
ALG did her part too, by far and away the most compelling presence at the dais. “There is a disease of dysfunction in Washington … Sen. McConnell is at the center of it,” she told the crowd. “If doctors told Sen. McConnell he had a kidney stone, he’d refuse to pass it.” She went on to outline an agenda for protecting Medicare and Social Security. She wants to give equal pay to women and pass the Violence Against Women Act — a bill McConnell voted “no” on, claiming he wants tougher legislation. As ALG spoke, he wore a tight-lipped smile, as if he were trying to pass a kidney stone in front of everyone. A pretty blond girl tapped my shoulder, wearing a pink dress fit for a debutante ball, and said that the crowd turnout for ALG was record-setting for a Democratic candidate at Fancy Farm. She also made sure to ask which media outlet I worked for. No, she couldn’t give a head count for ALG supporters, nor could she explain the rationale by which she’d come to her conclusion. Instead, she insisted that McConnell’s five busloads of supporters had been paid $10 a head to show up and be supportive. I promised that I’d try to find a way to use her purely unsubstantiated rumors.
The stakes at Fancy Farm 2014 will be sky high — I highly recommend it, even if you hate politics. The theatrics are spellbinding, and you get to see them sweat. ALG actually handed Conway a Kleenex to wipe his forehead — it was unclear if she’d been using it herself. McConnell had already been whisked away in a dark SUV when Ed Marksbury made the remarks about his turtle appearance, and most of Team Mitch had departed also. The old battleax wasn’t going to sit there and take shit from no challengers, save for ALG, who got to speak second as an elected official. Not that McConnell isn’t taking Bevin and ALG seriously — his chief of staff is leaving D.C. to concentrate entirely on the campaign back home. Do the bells toll for the least popular senator in the country among both conservatives and liberals alike? If you believe in signs, McConnell’s empty chair was draped in an American flag, military coffin-style.
By: Brian Weinberg, Salon, August 6, 2013
“Revenge Of The Abortion Barbies”: The GOP’s Growing Terror Of Mobilized Women
Erick Erickson is the insecure frat-boy id of the Republican Party. Oh, sure, party leaders wring their hands about their problem with women voters, but deep down, we’re all “Abortion Barbie” to a whole lot of them. Only Erickson is creepy enough to say so.
In case you missed it: Erickson — last seen freaking out over women as breadwinners, and being schooled by Fox host Megyn Kelly — apparently had a panic attack today over Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis, and decided to call her “Abortion Barbie.” That’s clever, and likely to do his party as much good with women as when Rush Limbaugh decided to call Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute.”
But Erickson’s outburst comes in a week when Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus melted down over CNN and NBC plans for a Hillary Clinton miniseries, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell got so rattled by Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes that he disrespected her by attacking her dad, as though the girl in the race didn’t matter enough to engage directly.
Psychologically a lot of Republicans seem to have problems with women, with our real and imagined power. The conservative project of controlling us is coming undone, and their fear is showing. But politically, they’ve got even bigger problems, with women’s genuine and growing political power. From Wendy Davis to Alison Grimes to Michelle Nunn in Georgia (she’s leading all her GOP Senate rivals in the latest PPP poll), female candidates are giving Red State Democrats some hope that they may win more statewide power sooner rather than later.
So Mr. RedState.com let loose another well-timed slur to give us a window onto his fear and loathing.
Reince Priebus has so many fears: He of course fears Hillary Clinton, since the GOP doesn’t have a candidate who could win a primary who could beat her if she runs. He fears his party’s likely 2016 roster, which may not be as chock-full of wacko birds as the Michele Bachmann-Herman Cain 2012 slate, but will still have plenty of characters to scare moderate voters. He fears a rerun of the grueling 2012 debate schedule, where said wacko birds had more than enough time to hang themselves with their own words.
And so his silly attack on the Hillary Clinton miniseries is a three-fer, for Priebus: It’s a way to attack Clinton, to reduce the number of 2016 GOP debates and to declare fealty to Fox News. He took his complaints to Sean Hannity Monday night, and the Fox host supportively stroked his hand and echoed his complaints, declaring that the CNN and NBC miniseries will be a “love letter to Hillary.” Both Priebus and Hannity would like the 2016 GOP race to be contested entirely on the friendly terrain of Fox News, where candidates are received lovingly, and viewers are reassured their party will win in a landslide, until Karl Rove’s “Republican math” fails him and they have to announce the election of yet another Democrat. It wouldn’t seem to have worked out so well for them last time around, but I guess it’s better than going out into the big scary world where Democrats have a growing edge with the largest single voting bloc: women.
Then there’s Mitch McConnell. It’s way too early for Democrats to get overconfident about Grimes’ chances in Kentucky. McConnell will have a lot of money and loves to fight dirty. But there was something unsettling about his decision to attack Grimes’ father at the iconic Fancy Farms event over the weekend. “I want to say how nice it is to see [former Kentucky Democratic chairman] Jerry Lundergan back in the game,” he told the crowd. “Like the loyal Democrat he is, he’s taking orders from the Obama campaign about how to run his daughter’s campaign.” In fact the family is much closer to the Clintons, who are hugely popular with Kentucky Democrats, so McConnell’s decision to attack Grimes through first her father, and then through the president, was not just coded sexism but racism, and betrays his fear of a strong woman candidate – not just Grimes, but Hillary Clinton.
But at least he didn’t call her “Abortion Barbie.”
We all know the Republican Party is demographically doomed, but the question is how soon will its dominance with white voters become irrelevant in a multiracial America. It will be very soon if Republicans continue to repel white women. Depressingly (to me), white women went for Mitt Romney in 2012 after backing Obama in 2008. But in many states, younger white women and college-educated white women are a swing electorate that can accelerate the transition from red to blue.
So keep slurring Wendy Davis, and Alison Lundergan Grimes, and Hillary Clinton, Republicans! While you continue to insult and stereotype African-American and Latino voters, you’re making sure that the Obama coalition not only holds together but expands in 2014 and 2016.
By: Joan Walsh, Editor at Large, Salon, August 6, 2031
“Time For Conservatives To Face Reality”: Deal With It, ObamaCare Will Not Be Repealed Or Defunded
On March 21, 2010, my former boss and mentor, David Frum, wrote a story that ran on FrumForum.com under the headline “Waterloo.” It harshly criticized conservatives for their uncompromising opposition to the bill officially titled the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, but which most of us know simply as ObamaCare. David agreed that in a perfect world, ObamaCare would never see the light of day. However, surveying the legislative landscape, David observed that the GOP never had enough votes to defeat the health-care bill.
While conservatives could not prevent the bill from becoming law entirely, David argued that they could have engaged with Democrats and possibly watered down many of the bill’s most unconservative provisions. Instead, though, the GOP refused to participate at all because the worse the bill the unchecked Democratic Congress passed, the better Republicans would do in the 2010 midterm elections.
“Waterloo” went live on the website at around 5 p.m. on the 21st. Within 24 hours, American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks took David to lunch and fired him, essentially for daring to disagree.
More than three years and two elections have passed since David was shouted down for pointing out the flaws in the GOP’s “strategy” for handling ObamaCare. History appears to have provided David right. While the GOP did seize control of the House in November 2010, the party has failed to secure the Senate and, more importantly, Barack Obama won re-election. Realistically, what that means is that repeal is not an option, since even if the GOP did somehow manage to secure a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate in 2014 (which even the most optimistic prognosticators will tell you is not going to happen), the GOP still could not affect repeal (since the president would veto). And yet, despite this harsh reality, serious members of the GOP are still promising voters that they will repeal the law. Indeed, Mike Lee and Ted Cruz are threatening to shut down the government if the president does not defund the law.
Not surprisingly, plenty of smart liberals have taken note of the GOP’s obstinacy on this issue. But more interesting is the fact that some of the brightest voices within the conservative movement are beginning to speak out against the futility of the strategy that my old boss was fired for raising back in 2010. The question ought never have been whether we can prevent ObamaCare, but rather how bad ObamaCare was going to be when the bill finally was delivered to the president for signing.
Late last week, Charles Krauthammer finally put his foot down in the face of Cruz and Lee’s continued efforts to shape GOP policy proposals as if they lived in a perfect conservative world that simply does not exist. Krauthammer did not mince words, describing the Cruz/Lee ultimatum as “nuts.” While he acknowledged that he would support defunding ObamaCare if he thought it would work, he also said it’s obvious that it won’t work, and that he does not fancy “suicide.” Indeed, while Lee and Cruz will undoubtedly claim those who don’t support their cause are less than full conservatives, Krauthammer correctly observed that one’s position on their proposal has little to do with principle and everything to do with “sanity.”
Interestingly, the point that Krauthammer makes is virtually identical to the one David made three years ago. The proposition underlying both articles is that electoral realities must govern ideological decision-making. In a perfect world, Republicans simply could have prevented ObamaCare’s passage by voting against it. Similarly, now, in a perfect world, Republicans would have the votes to repeal or defund ObamaCare.
But alas, this is not a perfect world and that being the case, true conservatives adjust their tactics and their expectations. Over the past three years, the GOP base has become so enamored with the idea of ideological purity that they have been willing to throw the realities of real world politics overboard to chase it. But real defenders of conservatism must learn to embrace the painful compromises of day-to-day governance. Otherwise, we will become a party that stands by and debates itself while living under completely unchecked legislation shaped wholly by our ideological opponents.
By: Jeb Golinkin, The Week, August 6, 2013
“The GOP’s Limited Appeal”: New Data Shows Why The Next Republican Nominee Is Screwed
Immigration reform isn’t quite dead yet, but the political fall-out of immigration reform’s demise is pretty clear: the GOP rebrand is going to be pretty tough. Despite relatively favorable circumstances, immigration reform advocates weren’t able to drag the party toward the center. And if congressional Republicans can’t advance the rebrand by allowing losing issues—like a pathway to citizenship or background checks on gun purchases—to advance through Congress and depart from consideration in 2016, then the next Republican nominee will be left with the difficult task of broadening the appeal of the GOP.
Today, a new Pew Research survey suggests that Republican presidential candidates won’t find it easy to move toward the center. The poll shows that Republicans recognize the need for change—with 59 percent even suggesting they need to change on the issues. But when it comes to the specifics, most Republicans support maintaining the party’s current positions or even moving further to the right. When asked about the party’s current stance on gay marriage, immigration, government spending, abortion, and guns, at least 60 percent of Republicans said they thought the party was about right or too moderate.
Desire for change was greatest, if still very limited, on cultural conservative issues. On gay marriage, 31 percent of Republicans said they wanted the party to moderate. But 27 percent thought the party wasn’t conservative enough (do they want a return to sodomy laws?) and another 33 percent were satisfied with the party’s current stance. The numbers were similar on abortion: 25 percent wanted the party to moderate, but 26 percent thought the party wasn’t conservative enough, and another 41 percent were satisfied with the party’s current position.
On immigration, where the party’s current position is potentially less clear to voters, the Republican rank-and-file isn’t itching to get behind a compromise. 17 percent support moving to the left on immigration, compared to 36 percent who want the party to get more conservative. More generally, 67 percent of Republicans think the party is compromising too much or the right amount with Democrats.
Unfortunately, the poll offered fewer answers on economic issues, the center of much of the discussion of the Republican “rebrand.” The poll only asked about government spending, where Republicans are predictably all but unified—only 10 percent want the party to moderate, compared to 46 percent who want a more conservative stance and another 41 percent who are satisfied with the party’s current position. But the poll offers few answers on other economic issues, like taxes, Wall Street, or the various proposals for making the party more “populist” within its current ideological bounds. The degree of party unity on government spending, however, suggests that there might not be very much space for movement on economic issues.
With little Republican appetite for moderation, it’s not surprising that Rubio’s numbers have dropped. It’s also not surprising that he’s moving to reaffirm his conservative credentials on the push to defund Obamacare and ban abortion after twenty weeks. These numbers suggest that the Republicans won’t be eager to nominate someone pushing the party to moderate, at least on cultural issues and government spending. Chris Christie’s favorability ratings suggest as much: He’s only at plus-17, with 47 percent favorable and a sizable 30 percent holding an unfavorable opinion. That’s worse than Romney ever had, and it’s probably inconsistent with winning the Republican nomination.
The composition of the Republican primary electorate makes the challenge even greater. In the Pew poll, 49 percent of Republicans who participate in every primary support the tea party—just 22 percent consider themselves moderate. In last year’s primaries, evangelical Christians represented more than 40 percent of the electorate in just about every major contest, including relatively moderate Romney states like Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Florida.
Given today’s numbers and Mitt Romney’s difficulty securing the nomination, it’s highly unclear whether Republicans could nominate a candidate who wants to moderate the party. And if the primary process is unlikely to yield a candidate who can moderate the party, then the Republican House would be wise to preemptively bail out the next Republican candidate, and relieve them of the obligation to oppose a pathway to citizenship, background checks on gun purchases, or whatever else. That doesn’t look like it will happen. Instead, it looks like Republicans will need to count on the appeal of their 2016 presidential candidate and economic fundamentals to overcome the party’s limited appeal.
By: Nat Cohn, The New Republic, July 31, 2013
“Purifying The Republican Party”: The Destructive Rise Of The No-Government Conservatives
Nine months after a decisive loss in the 2012 elections, the battle for the soul of the Republican Party—or whatever’s left of it—has begun.
I’m not talking about a battle between moderates and conservatives. The conservatives won that fight a long time ago. Our children may never believe that moderate Republicans once roamed the Earth, advocating policies that would limit carbon pollution and invest in scientific research, reform our schools and build new roads, promote national service, reduce the influence of money in politics, and require individuals who can afford health insurance to take responsibility for buying it. Soon enough, these politicians will exist only in the minds of ’90s-era pundits and Aaron Sorkin’s writing staff.
The conservatives have finally purified the Republican Party, dispatching moderate infidels in primary after primary, demanding fealty to their agenda of huge tax cuts and drastically lower spending. They have used their sizable numbers in Congress to help realize that agenda, with periodic assists from a president who has always been more fiscally responsible than his enemies would admit.
Today the tax burden on the vast majority of families is lower than it’s been in decades. Domestic spending outside of Medicare and Medicaid is the lowest it’s been in more than half a century. A public sector that has grown under the last four presidents has significantly contracted under Barack Obama. And deficits are falling at the fastest pace in 60 years.
Conservatives remain unsatisfied. They want more tax cuts. More spending cuts. And I’m picking up signals that they’re not entirely thrilled with the Affordable Care Act.
But here, a new divide has emerged within the Republican Party. On one side are the traditional small-government conservatives, who have a rough acquaintance with the rules of politics and basic math. They may want to reduce the size of government further, but they also want to preserve the institutions of government, understanding that a functional democracy is necessary to provide for the common defense, promote a common prosperity, and tackle problems we can only solve together, as a nation.
These are Republicans like Chris Christie, who has witnessed the vital importance of robust federal aid in the wake of a terrible storm. These are Republicans like Jeb Bush, who has tried to reform public education without completely dismantling it. These are Republicans like John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and the handful of senators who have sought compromise with Democrats over issues such as immigration reform and finally ended the historically exceptional blockade of perfectly qualified executive-branch nominees so that the president can fill the jobs his administration is required to perform.
None of these actions have endeared the small-government conservatives to their rivals for power, the no-government conservatives. No-government conservatives take their inspiration from Grover Norquist’s famous quote that government should be shrunk to a size where it can be drowned in a bathtub. These Republicans, who make up most of the House and a healthy portion of the Senate, are on an uncompromising mission to abolish most government services, benefits, regulations, and taxes.
The goals of no-government conservatives are not primarily economic. They will propose more tax cuts in times of surplus and times of deficit. They care little when the nonpartisan experts and economists at the Congressional Budget Office say sequestration will cost up to 1.6 million jobs next year, or that immigration reform will boost our GDP, or that Obamacare will reduce the debt over time. No-government conservatives are not compelled by the evidence that temporary benefits such as food stamps and unemployment insurance put money in the pockets of those most likely to spend it at local businesses that will grow and create jobs as a result. Their only jobs agenda, their only growth agenda, their only deficit agenda is eliminating government, no matter how many people it helps or how big a boost it provides the economy.
Nor are the goals of no-government conservatives primarily political. They have advisers, they can read polls, and most of them probably know that shutting down the government or forcing a default would be, among other catastrophes, highly unpopular. They realize that rampant hostage-taking and filibuster-abuse are the chief contributors to the obstruction and gridlock that Americans of both parties hate.
They just don’t care. Jonathan Chait has written about the recent embrace of “procedural extremism” among many congressional Republicans, who have “evolved from being politically shrewd proponents of radical policy changes to a gang of saboteurs who would rather stop government from functioning at all.”
But for no-government conservatives, this has been their primary policy goal all along. Their fundamental philosophy is purely ideological—the idea that since government can’t do everything, it should do nothing. So as long as the public continues to see Washington as a dysfunctional circus of petty children, the conservative philosophy of government is vindicated. That is also precisely why no-government conservatives view the successful implementation of Obamacare as an existential threat—because it would prove that limited government intervention in the market can still be an effective force for good. It is why some Republicans are threatening a shutdown unless Obama agrees to defund the Affordable Care Act—a step they know can’t even be achieved through the annual budget process.
In 2016, Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz seem to be the most likely champions of no-government conservatism, with Marco Rubio engaged in a delicate balancing act between purity and sanity. Whether Republican activists will still embrace traditional conservatives like Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, and others remains to be seen. But of one thing I am certain: while the single-minded pursuit of a no-government ideology may bring Republicans a fanatical sense of purpose, it will not bring them the 270 electoral votes needed to take back the White House, nor will it help our recovery gain the speed and strength it needs. The sooner the party faithful realize this, the better off the country will be.
By: Jon Favreau, The Daily Beast, July 30, 2013
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