“Following The Will Of The People, Sometimes”: For Some Politicians, Public Opinion Only Seems To Matter On Syria
When the Founding Fathers sought to form a country for the people and by the people, one of the central components was to establish a representative government – to create a legislative body that reflected the will and values of the masses.
In today’s technologically advanced, media-frenzied world, tweets, “likes”, emails, texts and sound bites have become the voice of the people. Politicians are left to sift through massive amounts of data points to determine the will and desire of their constituents.
In addition, public opinion polls are conducted on an almost constant basis that seek to demonstrate and frame the public debate in ways that elected officials can fine-tune and adjust their strategy and approach to better anticipate the public’s demand.
So it’s always curious to see whether a politician chooses to reflect the poll’s findings or whether they act counter to its conclusions.
Of late, public polls have suggested that the American people are war fatigued and that they increasingly fear that military action in Syria would engage the United States in another messy, prolonged conflict in the Middle East. Further, there is a serious concern that involvement in Syria would increase the terrorist threat to Americans. According to a new survey by the Pew Research Center and USA Today, 63 percent of Americans oppose U.S. air strikes in Syria, a 15-point shift against the involvement in just the last week.
As a result, this overwhelming opposition to the strikes – echoed in town hall meetings, negative phone calls and emails to congressional offices – has shaped the points of view for a majority of House members who pledged their opposition and sought defeat of a proposed resolution for force in Syria.
Kristina Miller, author of Constituency Representation in Congress noted that, “it’s commonplace for politicians to cite opinion among their constituents. When there’s a vote that’s particularly difficult or consequential, it provides them some cover – ‘I was doing what my people wanted me to do.'”
But, when presented with polling that shows overwhelming support for expanded background checks for gun purchases (86 percent support), apparently public opinion becomes less compelling and even dismissed, as House Republicans refuse to debate or take action on any bill addressing this issue.
Similarly, 64 percent of Americans support the immigration reform act passed by the U.S. Senate, but stalled in the House. “The public supports the immigration bill 2-1 and shows unusual agreement given the divisions in the country on many other issues,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “It seems the only group divided on this issue is Congress.” But, efforts for comprehensive immigration reform legislation have been stymied by the GOP in the House and left for another day.
According to the latest United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection poll, Republican primary voters pose the greatest threat to a GOP incumbent, with 35 percent of those polled saying they would be less inclined to support their re-election if they support a military strike in Syria.
One has to wonder if, when a politician puts their finger in the wind, is he or she really looking to find the pulse of the people, or just convenient political cover? Do our elected officials really care about the will of the people, or are they most interested in casting “safe” votes (or avoiding them altogether), so as to not threaten reelection?
By: Penny Lee, U. S. News and World Report, September 12, 2013
“It’s All Academic Governor”: Chris Christie’s Debate Phobia Won’t Win Him GOP Support
“We are not a debating society. We are a political operation that needs to win.”
Thus did Chris Christie offer one of the most pregnant statements yet in the ongoing Republican argument over the party’s future. At the risk of sounding like one of those “professors” the New Jersey governor regularly condemns, I’d argue that these 15 words, spoken at a Republican National Committee meeting in Boston last week, raise more questions than they answer. Here are a few.
How do you decide on a winning strategy without debating it first? What is wrong with debating differences on policy and philosophy that people in political parties inevitably have? Don’t the voters expect to have some idea of what a party and a candidate believe before they cast their ballots — and doesn’t that imply debate? Doesn’t the phrase “political operation” risk implying that you are seeking power for power’s sake and not for any larger purpose?
There is also this: Isn’t Christie himself engaged in an important debate with Sen. Rand Paul over national security issues? There’s nothing academic about that.
One of two things is going on here: Either Christie knows he’ll need to have the debate he claims he wishes to avoid but doesn’t want to look like he is questioning fundamental conservative beliefs, or he really believes that the “I can win and the other guys can’t” argument is enough to carry him to the 2016 Republican presidential nomination he shows every sign of seeking. The latest signal came Friday when, under pressure from pro-gun activists, he vetoed a weapon ban he once advocated.
His target audience, after all, is an increasingly right-wing group of Republican primary voters who are unforgiving of ideological deviations. The last thing Christie needs is the sort of debate that casts him as a “moderate.”
Let’s stipulate that Christie is far less “moderate” than either his fans among Democrats and independents or the hardest-core conservatives seem to believe. Simply because Christie was nice to President Obama after Hurricane Sandy — at a moment when New Jersey needed all the federal help it could get — lots of people forget how conservative the pre-Sandy Christie was.
In 2011, he went to the summer seminar sponsored by the Koch brothers in Colorado, heaped praise on them and said, among other things: “We know the answers. They’re painful answers. We’re going to have to reduce Medicare benefits. We’re going to have to reduce Medicaid benefits. We’re going to have to raise the Social Security age. We’re going to have to do these things. We’re going to have to cut all type of other government programs that some people in this room might like. But we’re gonna have to do it.”
If I were on the right, I’d be taken with Christie’s skills at making conservative positions seem “pragmatic” and “practical.” Candidates who are perceived as dogmatic or highly ideological rarely win elections.
But here’s the problem: You can’t run as a pragmatic candidate if your party won’t let you. For Christie to win, he will have to convince the grass-roots Republicans who decide nominations that the party’s steady march rightward is a mistake.
Surely Paul, Ted Cruz and others among Christie’s potential opponents won’t let him slide by without challenging him hard — yes, “debating” him — about what he really stands for. Christie needs something more substantial than “You guys are losers,” even though he would relish saying it.
Mitt Romney’s experience in 2012 is instructive. He was a relatively pragmatic governor, especially on health care, and could have been a more attractive candidate than he turned out to be. Yet the dynamics of a Republican primary electorate that is short on middle-of-the-roaders pushed Romney away from his old self and toward positions that made him less electable. Faced with opponents to his right, he was reactive and drifted their way. In the end, it wasn’t clear who Romney was, other than the candidate who spoke derisively about the “47 percent.”
Those who understand how a “political operation” works know that genuine pragmatism requires a defeated party to engage in rethinking, not just repositioning. Bill Clinton laid out a detailed program and a set of arguments as a “New Democrat.” George W. Bush spoke of “compassionate conservatism” and challenged at least some of the most reactionary positions held by congressional Republicans.
Winning reelection this November by the biggest possible margin will buy Christie time. But eventually the debating society will beckon. He’ll have to be very clear, if not professorial, about the argument he wants to make.
By: E. J. Dionne, Jr., Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, August 18, 2013
“Dudley Brown’s War”: The 2016 GOP Presidential Primary Is Going To Be A Cannibalistic Train Wreck
Chances are, unless you’re a Colorado political insider, you’ve never heard of Dudley Brown, the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners or the National Association for Gun Rights. But Dudley, as he’s universally known in Colorado, is one of the reasons Democrats have turned Colorado blue, and his scorched-earth tactics on gun rights could very well play in the 2016 Republican presidential primary. Dudley’s National Association for Gun Rights spent more money opposing gun legislation than the NRA, a group he considers soft, and has become closely affiliated with Senator Rand Paul.
Dudley is the subject of “Dudley Brown’s War” an extensive profile by reporter Eli Stokols in this month’s 5280 Magazine. It leads with this telling and appalling anecdote:
True to form, last July, two days after James Holmes shot 70 moviegoers in Aurora, killing 12, I asked him about proposals to limit ammunition purchases. When I mentioned Holmes had 6,000 rounds with him that night, Brown said, “I call 6,000 rounds running low.”
Dudley has a long history of attacking Colorado Republicans he considers too-compromising on gun rights, ensuring a weak, extremist candidate in the general election. Stokols continues:
Brown’s hostage-holding of any center- or left-tilting Colorado Republican has crippled the GOP’s ability to regain a political foothold, making Colorado a swing-state microcosm of the national GOP’s biggest problem: breaking free of its base and becoming more “inclusive,” an imperative Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus outlined in March.
Dudley is an equal-opportunity misogynist: the object of some of his worst vitriol has been Republican women. He was responsible for an ugly anti-gay mailer in a Republican state Sen. primary that pitted incumbent Jean White, who voted for civil unions, against challenger Randy Baumgardner (who’s now running for Senate). The gay couple featured in the hate mailer is now suing for unauthorized use of their photo. White lost. And even if he beats 2010 GOP nominee Ken Buck, who just filed papers for the race, Baumgardner can’t beat Democratic Sen. Mark Udall.
Dudley also went after Republican State Rep. B.J. Nikkel for supporting civil unions. As B.J. told me on Twitter, “He can’t stand any woman he can’t control.”
So the cannibalistic exercise that will be the Republican 2016p primary is hardly unfamiliar to Colorado voters. It’s gained volume with the Rand Paul-Chris Christie spat, and shows no signs of abating with Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz visiting Iowa and urging a government shutdown. Meanwhile Paul, a senator from Kentucky, and the National Association for Gun Rights have already started attacking other Republicans for being too soft on gun rights.
According to Politico, back in April during the height of the gun safety bill debate in Congress, “The group has blitzed the districts of Virginia Republicans Cantor and Rep. Scott Rigell with $50,000 worth of TV and radio ads accusing them of helping President Barack Obama pass gun control legislation.”
Sound familiar? Rigell had an A- from the NRA. But that wasn’t good enough for Rand Paul and Dudley Brown.
If Paul makes a serious run at the nomination, he’ll have Dudley Brown to thank. And if he loses the election, Democrats will have Dudley Brown to thank.
By: Laura Chapin, U. S. News and World Report, August 9, 2013
“The Notion Of The Shiny Object Theory”: Conservative Firebrands Want Scalps, Not Hollow Victories
Ornery first-term Republican senators and bomb-throwing conservative activist groups are locking horns again with the Republican establishment.
Tea Party firebrands want to defund Obamacare by threatening to shut down the government at the end of the fiscal year. Other Republicans decry this as irresponsible.
Insurgents say the Establishment doesn’t really care about conservative goals. The Establishment says the right-wingers confuse a difference in tactics for a lack of principle.
To understand the tension, it helps to explore the notion of the “Shiny Object.”
Mike Needham is the CEO of Heritage Action for America, the lobbying arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation. Heritage Action is the spearhead of the Beltway Tea Party. Needham is the sharp tip of that spear. He’s also the author of the Shiny Object theory.
Republican lawmakers want to please their conservative constituents, especially in these days of Tea Party primaries. To mollify the base, GOP members come home touting a conservative vote or a victory over the Democrats. Far too often, Needham says, these supposed conservative accomplishments are just “shiny objects” intended to distract conservative voters from the lack of accomplishments by Washington Republicans.
Needham first used this term with me while discussing the gun control battle of last spring. Republican senators went back to their districts trumpeting that they had defeated Harry Reid’s assault-weapons ban.
“There was no chance that an assault weapons ban was going to pass,” Needham tells me. Defeating the assault-weapons ban was a shiny object that Republicans could hold out to distract conservatives, providing cover for mandating background checks.
Conservative congressional aides, current and past, complain that this shiny-object method has been the standard operating procedure.
New power dynamics disrupt this.
On gun control, the Tea Partiers refused to let the shiny-object strategy work. Freshman Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, raised a stink, accusing GOP senators of being “squishes” on gun rights. Outside groups ran ads in the districts of GOP senators, ignoring the assault-weapons ban and saying the real fight was the background-check provision crafted by Senators Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.
The grassroots responded, and Republican members heard about it during the congressional recess. Toomey-Manchin failed.
Heritage Action, FreedomWorks, Club for Growth, and Americans for Prosperity — with their broad networks of local conservatives — all make the shiny-object trick harder. Politicians are no longer voters’ only source of inside-the-Beltway intelligence.
So when a Republican congressman says at his town hall he has voted to repeal Obamacare, the member might get pointed questions from some AFP member or local activist who sat in on a Heritage Action weekly conference call. Obamacare-repeal votes are shiny objects, these groups tell the grassroots. They are not really going to change policy.
The insurgents demand actions that could get real results. “Defund it or own it,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “If you fund it, you’re for it.”
How can a minority party defund Obamacare? By threatening to kill all appropriations for fiscal year 2014. Republican leaders think this unwise, and they bristle at the suggestion that they’re fine with Obamacare.
“We’ve been fighting this thing with everything we’ve got for four years,” one GOP Senate aide told me. “We don’t have a difference in goals, we have a difference in strategies … The party continues to be united in the effort to repeal it, but this is just not the right strategy.”
But Needham and allies argue that the Establishment’s strategy equals giving up. He has a point. Many Republicans quietly say what my Washington Examiner colleague Byron York writes: The 2012 election was the last chance to kill this beast.
Needham says he’s just trying to hold Republicans to their word: “When they tell their constituents, ‘I will come to Washington and do everything I can to block Obamacare,’ if they don’t do everything they can … They should have to explain themselves.”
This appears suicidal to many. Conservative columnist Ramesh Ponnuru writes: “The chance that Democrats would go along … approaches zero percent. So if Republicans stay firm in this demand, the result will be either a government shutdown or a partial shutdown combined with a debt default.” And Republicans will take the blame.
But even if you can’t get your opening ask, the insurgents say, you can get something. Hold out until late September, and maybe Democrats will agree to delay the individual mandate — or delay the exchanges until the government thinks it can determine eligibility for subsidies.
These conservatives believe Republicans have been fooling them with shiny objects. This time, they want actual scalps.
By: Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner, July 30, 2013
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