“The Moderate Revolution In Kansas”: The Center Is Fighting Back And The Right Wing Is Getting Pretty Nervous
A surprising political revolt is now brewing in Kansas, one that could provide a model for breaking the stranglehold of the hard right on the Republican Party — if enough people join in.
Moderates and Tea Partiers have jousted for several years in Kansas, just as they have elsewhere, and the right wing has largely won, ousting moderates from school boards, county commissions, and the Capitol. But now the center is fighting back, summoning an aggressiveness that like-minded Republicans have rarely employed at the national level or in other states.
On Monday, 104 moderates did something unthinkable, banding into a group called Republicans for Kansas Values in order to endorse a Democrat, Paul Davis, in his campaign to oust Gov. Sam Brownback from office. The main reason was Mr. Brownback’s ruinous tax cuts, which, as The Times editorial board noted on Monday, have severely reduced the state’s revenues, leading to a credit-rating reduction and less money available for schools and roads.
“Kansas has not had that kind of tradition,” said Dick Bond, a Republican and former president of the Kansas Senate. “We value higher education. We value K-12. And we’re abandoning that in the name of some kind of extreme policy.”
But the group’s bill of particulars against Mr. Brownback — a mini-Declaration of Independence for moderates — goes far beyond what it calls a “reckless tax experiment” that actually raised middle-class taxes and pushing the state’s economy below all of its neighbors. It points out that the governor’s refusal to expand Medicaid had hurt Kansas hospitals and driven people out of rural counties. It accuses him of trying to end the state’s merit selection process for judges so that he could install his own appointees.
And most powerfully, it says he damaged the Republican party by purging those who disagreed with him — exactly the method favored by Tea Party leaders across the country.
“Brownback shrunk President Reagan’s ‘Big Tent’ Republican Party by joining with special interests to campaign against and beat Republicans who disagreed with his policies,” the group’s statement says. “Brownback’s extreme agenda makes Kansas appear intolerant and backward. Brownback’s hand-picked legislators have spent two straight legislative sessions focusing on social issues that sparked national negative press and embarrassed Kansas. Brownback’s Washington D.C.-style approach downgrades Kansas’ character and brings embarrassing headlines.”
This is tough stuff in a conservative state, and the far right is regrouping fast. One state legislator, noting the many former politicians in the group, said it had “raided the nursing home” for its members. Rick Santorum flew in this week to campaign for Mr. Brownback, and actually said “the future of the free world is at stake” in the governor’s re-election, because liberals — whom he compared to the “eye of Mordor” — were trying to destroy true patriots.
“The New York Times has no idea where Kansas is,” he said, according to the Wichita Eagle, “but they’ve written several articles hammering Sam Brownback, because Sam is a descendant of the American Revolution.”
When the hyperbole reaches the level of Tolkien, you know the right wing is getting nervous. Moderate Republicans have been silenced in state after state, too afraid of a vicious backlash to speak their minds. But now, coming from a very unexpected place, there is an example of courage to follow.
By: David Firestone, Taking Note, The Editorial Page Editors Blog, The New York Times, July 16, 2014
“Congress Does Nothing But Sue Obama”: Boehner’s Obama Lawsuit Is The Fault Of The Do-Nothing Congress
House Republicans are so angry that President Obama has been going around them to make policy that Speaker John Boehner says he will file a lawsuit against Obama to stop what the GOP sees as abuse of executive power. Said Boehner:
The Constitution makes it clear that a president’s job is to faithfully execute the laws. In my view, the president has not faithfully executed the laws. When there are conflicts like this between the legislative branch and the administrative branch, it’s … our responsibility to stand up for this institution.
Hello, pot? It’s the kettle calling. You’re black.
Boehner’s right in that the executive branch has been driving policy changes – even ones around the edges – and often using executive orders to do it. Obama is not the only president to do this, and it’s understandable that Congress would be irked at not being made a part of the process.
What rings hollow here is that Congress has aggressively chosen not to be part of the process. The 113th Congress is the least effective Congress in recent history, unable to get even basic budget and appropriations items, let alone a comprehensive immigration bill or entitlement reform. This Congress, and the House in particular, has made it a mission to oppose pretty much anything Obama wants to do (even, in some cases, where what Obama wants to do is not that dissimilar to what a lot of Republicans say they want). That’s their right, but it’s not rational for them to expect Obama to just sit by, throw up his hands and say, “oh, well – I guess I just won’t have any impact on the nation, even though I’m president.” (Though that would serve a Republican goal, too, giving them fodder to call Obama “weak” and “ineffective.”)
And it’s not as though the legislative branch hasn’t tried to flex its muscles and push around other branches of government . The House, in the past, has considered legislation that says, in the text, that the law cannot be subject to judicial review. Another bill would force another branch of government, the Supreme Court, to allow cameras in the room during oral arguments – something the high court doesn’t want and sees as a legislative branch encroachment on its day-to-day workings.
And is Obama really the only “kinglike” figure here? Mitt Romney, in the 2012 campaign, repeatedly pledged to undo Obamacare – a law written by Congress and passed by Congress – by executive order on his first day in office. Obama has been fiddling with enforcement and application of laws and regulations administered by the executive branch. Romney wanted to undo an entire law, just because it was approved by people who were duly elected by their constituents but with whom Romney does not agree. Rick Santorum, running in 2012, listed nine executive orders he planned to issue to undo laws of the land relating to abortion, stem cell research and gay marriage. He also pledged to call on Congress to abolish the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, a court whose rulings Santorum did not like.
Power abhors a vacuum. And if Congress categorically refuses to participate in the law-making process, it can’t expect other branches to follow suit. The Supreme Court has had a major role recently in public policy, especially issues such as gay marriage. It’s not because nine justices are sitting in a room, wringing their collective hands in a menacing way while laughing evilly. It’s because the legislative and executive branches have been unable to work together and recognize each other’s authority.
So some in Congress think Obama is taking too much power in the way he does his job. Maybe if Congress would do its job, there would be no problem.
By: Susan Milligan, U. S. News and World Report, June 26, 2014
“WTF Is ‘Natural Marriage’?”: When You Don’t Like The Way A Debate Is Going, Change The Terms
Today’s Politics 101 pop quiz: In the course of a fierce ideological battle, when it becomes clear that one side is getting its butt kicked, what are leaders of the losing team expected to do? A. Double down. B. Scare the crap out of their followers. C. Beg for money. D. All of the above.
No one really needs help with this one, do they?
So with public acceptance of gay marriage growing faster than Justin Bieber’s rap sheet, the culture warriors at the Family Research Council have been hawking their National Campaign in Defense of Natural Marriage. In multiple email calls to arms, FRC president Tony Perkins is urging people of “character and values” to “take a stand” by signing an on-line petition and, while they’re at it, donating a little something to this “counteroffensive.” By March 31, FRC wants—nay, “needs”—250,000 signatures and $1.1 million to “fund this demanding work of behalf of America’s families.” At that point, the e-petition will be deposited at the feet of the group’s latest hero, Sen. Ted Cruz, “in a public display of support for natural marriage.” Perkins pleads/warns/threatens: “I want to encourage you: natural marriage is not a lost cause in America—unless we give up and let the same-sex ‘marriage’ advocates have their way because we failed to stand up for what is right.”
Now, as a political obsessive subscribed to an unhealthy number of email lists, I receive a daily flood of overwrought solicitations from across the spectrum. Most I toss after a quick glance. But Perkins’s latest entreaties stopped me, not because of their tone or topic but because of their language. Specifically, I somehow missed the moment when “natural marriage” became the preferred term of anti-gay-marriage crusaders. (Sadly, despite several interview requests, the folks at FRC were unavailable to discuss this matter.)
It makes perfect sense when you think about it. As political rhetoric goes, “natural marriage” is ever so much more evocative—and, better yet, provocative—than the more commonly employed term “traditional marriage.” After all, plenty of folks would be amenable to, or perhaps even charmed by, the idea of an untraditional marriage. An unnatural marriage, by contrast, brings to mind all manner of unsavory couplings—like, for instance, the man-on-dog action that keeps Rick Santorum up at night. And, indeed, defenders of “natural marriage” talk a lot about how gay marriage is an affront to God’s “natural law.”
The folks at FRC did not, it should be noted, come up with the phrase on their own. The Catholic Church, for instance, tends to refer to “natural marriage” in contrast to “sacramental marriage”—the former being an exclusive, lifetime covenant between a man and a woman of no particular religious backgrounds, while the latter is specifically the union of a man and woman baptized within the Church. In this context, a natural marriage, while good and legitimate, is nonetheless spiritually inferior to a sacramental one.
Less canonically, “natural marriage” is also at times used as a rough synonym for “common-law marriage.” Even if limited to the hetero variety, such non-ceremonial arrangements, recognized by only a handful of states, would seem to be a far cry from the super-stable family environments that natural-marriage advocates are ostensibly seeking.
Not that any of this much matters now, as “natural marriage” has become a rallying cry for those looking to beat back, as Perkins puts it, “the agenda of the Progressive Left and radical homosexual lobby.” Back in 2004, a FRC pamphlet promoting hetero-only unions was all about “traditional marriage,” as were many of the group’s other communiques up through 2012. More recently, however, its commentary has been increasingly all “natural,” so to speak. Similarly, conservative groups like the Liberty Counsel (the legal nonprofit that takes up conservative causes pro bono) and Americans for the Truth about Homosexuality are solidly on the “natural” bandwagon.
As conservative spin doctor Frank Luntz taught us, if you don’t like the way a debate is going, you need to change the terms. Literally. Trying to rally a nation against the estate tax is a tough lift. But a “death tax”? Now there’s rhetorical gold. “Global warming” = scary and bad; “climate change,” not so much. In some cases, the differences may amount to no more than a couple of letters—say, the Democratic party vs. the Democrat party. And when it comes to firing up the faithful, not to mention separating them from their cash, “natural marriage” certainly seems to pack more gut-level oomph than its more “traditional” cousin.
The debate in question, however, may be beyond the point of such rhetorical retrofitting. These days, not even the veiled threats of bestiality, polygamy, and other comparably “unnatural” acts seem likely to derail the marriage equality train. Which may explain why, with less than a week left in its petition drive, FRC had yet to crack 10,000 signatories. Only 240,000 to go.
By: Michelle Cottle, The Daily Beast, March 27, 2014
“The Decline Of Conservative Publishing”: The Days Of Two-Bit Hacks With Anti-Liberal Screeds Getting On Bestseller Lists Are Over
As a liberal who has written a few books whose sales were, well let’s just say “modest” and leave it at that, I’ve always looked with envy at the system that helps conservatives sell lots and lots of books. The way it worked was that you wrote a book, and then you got immediately plugged into a promotion machine that all but guaranteed healthy sales. You’d go on a zillion conservative talk shows, be put in heavy rotation on Fox News, get featured by conservative book clubs, and even have conservative organizations buy thousands of copies of your books in bulk. If you were really lucky, that last item would push the book onto the bestseller lists, getting you even more attention.
It worked great, for the last 15 years or so. But McKay Coppins reports that the success of conservative publishing led to its own decline. As mainstream publishers saw the money being made by conservative houses like Regnery and the occasional breakthrough of books by people like Allan Bloom and Charles Murray, they decided to get into the act with right-leaning imprints of their own. But now, “Many of the same conservatives who cheered this strategy at the start now complain that it has isolated their movement’s writers from the mainstream marketplace of ideas, wreaked havoc on the economics of the industry, and diminished the overall quality of the work.”
I find that last part puzzling; it isn’t as though the anti-Clinton screeds of the 1990s were carefully researched and written with style, but that didn’t stop them from selling well. It seems as though this is mostly a reflection of the problems in the publishing industry as a whole. But one sub-niche that is definitely suffering is the pre-presidential-campaign book. Bizarrely, publishers still compete fervently to sign every last senator running a quixotic presidential campaign, on the off-chance that he might become president and then his book would sell spectacularly. But all but one of the candidates fails, and then the publishers have wasted their money. Just look at the pathetic sales some of these guys have generated:
For example, Tim Pawlenty, a short-lived presidential candidate in 2012, received an advance of around $340,000 for his 2010 book Courage to Stand. But the book went on to sell only 11,689 copies, according to Nielsen Bookscan, which tracks most, but not all, bookstore sales. What’s more, Pawlenty’s political action committee bought at least 5,000 of those copies itself in a failed attempt to get it on the New York Times best-seller list, according to one person with knowledge of the strategy.
This pattern continues as you scan the works of recent and prospective Republican presidential candidates. According to one knowledgeable source, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker received an even larger advance than Pawlenty’s, and Bookscan has his 2013 book Unintimidated selling around 16,000 copies. Sen. Rand Paul’s latest, Government Bullies, has barely cracked 10,000 sold; and despite spending months in the 2012 GOP primaries, Rick Santorum’s book about the founding fathers, American Patriots, sold just 6,538 copies. Perhaps most surprising, Immigration Wars, co-authored by Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor who consistently polls in the top tier of the Republican 2016 field, sold just 4,599 copies.
Meanwhile, Marco Rubio’s 2012 autobiography, American Son, has sold around 36,000 copies — a figure one conservative agent described as “respectable,” before pointing out that Rubio received an astounding $800,000 advance, according to a financial disclosure. The publisher’s bet, he speculated, was that Rubio was going to be selected as Mitt Romney’s running mate. He wasn’t.
Frankly, I have trouble seeing why anyone would want to drop $26 on one of these books, because they’re uniformly awful, even if you really like the guy who “wrote” it. Yet when one after another of these books sells terribly, the publishers keep buying them. This is yet more evidence, in case anyone needed any, that publishers are terrible businesspeople.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, March 20, 2014
“Socialized Education”: Another Republican Who Thinks It’s Time To Close The Doors At Public Schools
Once in a great while, a conservative policymaker will condemn the existence of public schools in the United States. They’re usually not quite as direct, though, as Ohio state Rep. Andrew Brenner (R), who recently published an online item insisting, “Public education in America is socialism.”
In the post, titled “Public education in America is socialism, what is the solution?,” Brenner laid out his argument. He noted that the Tea Party, which “will attack Obama-care relentlessly as a socialist system,” rarely brings up “the fact that our public education system is already a socialist system […] and has been a socialist system since the founding of our country.” […]
Brenner’s solution: more privatization. “In a free market system parents and students are free to go where the product and results are better,” he wrote.
Did I mention that Brenner is the vice-chair of the Ohio House Education Committee? He is.
For what it’s worth, the Ohio Republican apparently looked up “socialism” on Wikipedia and found that the word means “a social and economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy.” And since he sees public education fitting this bill, and because he believes all socialism must always be bad in all instances, Brenner seems to think it’s time to close the doors at public schools.
Of course, the same could be said for public police departments and fire departments, which would also have to be privatized, but one assumes Brenner and his allies will get to this on another day.
To be sure, even most far-right policymakers rarely talk this way publicly – most Americans celebrate the nation’s public-school system as an important institution and would generally oppose candidates eager to close them all down – but it’s worth noting that Brenner isn’t entirely alone.
Indeed, former senator and presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, just a few years ago, made very similar noises about public education. “Just call them what they are,” Santorum said in 2011. “Public schools? That’s a nice way of putting it. These are government-run schools.”
In early 2012, CBS’s Bob Schieffer asked Santorum, “Are you saying that we shouldn’t have public schools, now? I mean, I thought public schools were the foundation of American democracy.” The Republican didn’t back down, reemphasizing his belief that federal and state governments should not be involved in public education.
Republican pollsters have frequently suggested that it’s a mistake for party officials to call for shutting down the federal Department of Education because it gives the appearance of hostility towards public education.
But this apparently doesn’t stop some GOP candidates and policymakers from going even further.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, March 14, 2014
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