The Real Rebublican?

A while back, Jeremy Ryan posted a comment asking me what I thought about Congressman Ron Paul, as a Republican presidential candidate. I never got around to posting about that.

Today, I read a great piece, "Ron Paul, the Real Republican?"

It begins,

When you read about a vote in Congress that goes something like 412-1, odds are pretty good that the sole "nay" came from Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas. He so consistently votes against widely popular bills, in fact, that the Washington Post recently gave him the moniker "Congressman 'No.'"

Paul isn't a reflexive contrarian--he doesn't oppose just to oppose. Rather, he has a core set of principles that guide him. They happen to be the same principles envisioned by the framers of the U.S. : limited government, federalism, free trade and commerce -- with a premium on peace.

When most members of Congress see a bill for the first time, they immediately judge the bill on its merits, or if you're more cynical, they determine what the political interests that support them will think of it, or how it might benefit their constituents.

For Paul, the vast majority of bills don't get that far. He first asks, "Does the Constitution authorize Congress to pass this law?" Most of the time, the answer to that question is "no." And so Paul votes accordingly.

Take a look at the rest.

I think Paul sounds great. I don't see him running away with the nomination, but as the writer of the column suggests, I agree that he could bring discussion of some issues and positions that are long overdue for a discussion, especially within the Republican Party.

PSA

The Burlington Greens invite you to join them for a public screening of the documentary "American Blackout" which chronicles the recurring patterns of voter disenfranchisement from Florida 2000 to Ohio 2004 while following the story of Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. The event is Wednesday, February 7th at 6:30 P.M. at the Euro Gourmet Market & Cafè on 61 Main St. in Burlington. Discussion follows. Free and open to the public.

http://www.americanblackout.com/

http://www.burlingtonvtgreens.org/

I am not endorsing this film and I probably won't be attending, but I wanted to let you all know about it.

Green Party Drama

This week's Seven Days has an article about the recent schism in the Burlington Green Party.

It seems there are two people claiming to be the legitimate Green Party Chair. Only one has candidates on the ballot this march. The other one wants to challenge that in court.

Read all about it.

Roper New Chair of VT GOP

After spending the weekend in Massachusetts, it was great to come home to find out that the Vermont GOP elected Rob Roper as the new state party chair.

The left is already trying to portray him as an out-of-the-mainstream bigot, but this Vermonter welcomes someone who champions lower taxes and less government - not to mention, a coalition-builder - taking a position of party leadership in this state.

A Third Force

Back before the election, I linked to a piece by Richard Viguerie, in which he declared that the Big Government Republicans needed to lose the election. Ever since, I have been receiving e-mail from one of Viguerie's groups.

One great thing about that is that it contradicts my pessimistic view that the right does not have a handle on how to use new media to rally grass-roots support. I get e-mail like that from Newt Gingrich and a couple of others, as well. Good for you, guys.

At any rate, the other day, I received the following statement from Viguerie, in response to the President's State of the Union speech.

“I was struck more by what I didn’t hear than by what I heard.

“What he did say was mostly big-government economic, energy, and education schemes that could have just as easily come from President Clinton or President Carter. What he did not deliver were any Reaganesque calls for reducing the size of government, or getting the government off our backs—a core conservative goal since the 1950s.

“The underlying message in this State of the Union Address was directed toward the Democrats: In effect, we can work together--let’s make a deal. The underlying message directed toward the conservatives was: You have no place else to go.

“Among the other omissions in the President’s speech:

♦ He did not acknowledge any mistake in pursuing the liberal, big government policies that have driven the Republican Party from power on Capitol Hill.

♦ He did not announce any changes in personnel in a conservative direction.

♦ He did not announce that he will veto any increase in discretionary spending.

♦ He did not call for the downsizing or elimination of any government programs.

♦ He did not call for eliminating the corporate welfare shelled out to big business.

♦ He did not announce that he will veto any legislation that contains ‘earmarks.’

♦ He did not launch a serious war on the institutionalized government corruption between big business, their lobbies, Congress, and the Administration.

♦ He did not announce any significant initiatives to protect traditional moral values.

“Accordingly, conservatives must continue to declare their independence from the Republican Party. We must act as a Third Force in American politics, seeking to draw both major political parties to the Right. Conservative principles and goals take precedence over partisanship. We will support Democrats and Republicans alike when they do the right thing, and oppose Democrats and Republicans alike when they do the wrong thing.”

While I don't agree with every single thing that Viguerie wanted the President to say, I think he has an interesting idea - for conservatives to abandon their allegiance to a party and act as a force that draws both major parties to the right.

I think the case could be made that the reason both major parties are moving toward the Big Government side (I'll refrain from using the classic left-right designations here) is due in large part to the efforts of different social activist groups to gain public support for their movements. Public support = votes. Ergo, the politicians started moving in the direction where they thought they would find the most public support.

One need not look very far to find examples of public policy being shaped by a couple of loud voices, whether or not the general public agrees.

Could this strategy work for conservatives?

In light of the former Republican majority's near total abandonment of fiscal conservatism, would it make sense for conservatives to abandon the party and work instead on influencing the entire political landscape by influencing public opinion through independent activist groups?

I don't know if this is what Viguerie is proposing, but it does make sense for small government conservatives to start getting out and actively educating the public as to why Big Government policies are harmful.

And I agree with Vigueire that the conservative vote cannot be taken for granted to belong to the GOP.

A Loyal Republican?

(Updated 1/24)

I have been meaning to post about this since Thursday, but I was sick (again!) this weekend and just didn't get around to it. However, since I was quoted in this morning's Free Press quite extensively, I figured I would write up a post.

As you other Burlington area political junkies already know, last Thursday, Loyal Ploof, former Progressive, former Green, former independent Mayoral candidate, became a Republican and left the caucus with our nomination for City Councilor in Ward 3.

As John Briggs in the Free Press reported this morning, my thoughts were that it was like watching a car accident - "really shocking to have that happen in front of you. You want to stop it, but you can't. "

Thankfully, he also printed my backpedaling quote, "I don't want to say he's as bad as a car accident, but I can guarantee you the people who identify themselves as Republicans aren't going to look at him as someone who represents their views."

Here are my thoughts about this whole debacle.

If Loyal Ploof has really decided that he is a Republican, as he says in the article, then he should have stood up and addressed the caucus.

I fully understand the nature of political parties and the fact that there is a broad spectrum of views. All are welcome and I do not have the right to decide who is and who isn't Republican enough.

When I was Party Chair, I was interested in party-building and reaching out to new people. Even within the ranks of long-time Republican activists, there was a broad range of views, some of which even conflict with some of my own.

I welcomed Libertarians Jeremy and Heavenly Ryan to all of our monthly meetings and found common ground with them. I would have gladly welcomed Loyal Ploof, who volunteered on one of my City Council campaigns. There is common ground there, with Loyal. I do not dispute that.

My problem is with how the situation transpired. Looking around the room, I saw the expressions of other people, who have been with the party for years, wondering what this guy was doing.

As I said, he should have addressed the caucus. He should have known that people would be wondering what he was doing there.

Party Secretary Kevin Ryan was quoted in the story saying, "I hope the party is going to be open-minded and welcome new people." If this was Ryan's goal, he, as the person chairing the meeting in the absence of the Chair and Vice-Chair, should have invited Ploof to address the caucus.

Of course, he also could have told others that Ploof was coming, which I have reason to believe he did know ahead of time, contrary to what the article says.

There was one procedural objection to Ploof's coup. Our by-laws state that a member of another party cannot be on our committee. One of Ploof's supporters, Sean Starfighter, is a Green Party member, appearing on this March's ballot as a Green.

Ryan dismissed the procedural concern, saying that we would deal with that later.

If people are truly seeking to work together, bind-siding those you hope to work with is not the best way to form that alliance. The way to build a group is through communication.

Instead, Republicans are left wondering what the motivation is behind Ploof's move. Is he using the Party for money? Is this just to spite the Progressives, as suggested at BurlingtonPol? Or is Ploof really interested in fiscal conservatism?

Well, we don't know because he never addressed the caucus. All we know is that he categorized the elected Republican City Councilor and State Representative Kurt Wright as being "one of those real strong right-wingers." Unfortunately for Ploof, many of the people in the Party he now calls home see Wright as rather moderate.

This is a wake-up call to the Burlingtonians who identify themselves as Republicans. Any three people can come in off the street, declare themselves Republicans, and one can walk out our city council nominee, if there are no Republicans from that ward present.

This also could have happened in wards 1, 2, and 6, all of which had no other members present, and even in my ward 5, which had only me present.

It only takes three people to make a ward caucus and elect a nominee. If people do not show up at the caucus to represent the wards, anyone can walk out of there with the nomination. Not only does this make a mockery of our party, but it also hurts fund raising efforts.

If the Burlington Republican committee is going to have any relevance in the future, they need to get more people to come and we need to show up.


Update: In yesterday's Free Press, Loyal announced that he is no longer running for City Council in Ward 3. Also, in the comments of this post, it was revealed that Sean Starfighter is not running as a Green, as a result of the party cross-over incident.

Who Will Replace Jim Barnett?

I just read that Rob Roper is running for State Republican Party Chair. Roper is currently involved in the Vermont chapter of Freedom Works - the lower taxes, less government activist group formed by Dick Armey.

This could be a great day for the Republican Party. Hey, maybe a small state can lead the nation. One can only hope.

You can read the article here. I will be back with more commentary when I am feeling better!

Happy Birthday, Libertarian Party

Today is the 35th anniversary of the Libertarian Party.

For your viewing pleasure, here is a You Tube of the History of the Libertarian Party.



An interesting, albeit cheesy, piece. And my first You Tube embedment on She's Right. Yea me!

Note: Please let me know if there is a problem with the You Tube thing in IE. I opened IE to double check how it looked and then I remembered, the whole reason I switched to Firefox in the first place is because I could not get embedded You Tubes to play on the new version of IE I have on my computer. Some lame security BS. So, let me know if there are any issues in other browsers. Thanks.

PS. Firefox is like 100-times better than IE. And I am not just saying that to score geek points.