posted on November 4, 2006 01:04:55 PM
Should Conservatives Want GOP to Lose?
By Bruce Bartlett
In my new book, "Impostor," I am highly critical of President Bush for failing to stand up for conservative principles. One of the main criticisms I have heard is that Republicans in Congress deserve much of the blame for out-of-control federal spending and other sins that I pin on him.
This is a valid point. But I take the view that members of Congress will always behave myopically, seeing spending that benefits their constituents as supremely virtuous even as they decry deficits and bloated budgets.
It is the president's responsibility to look out for the national interest and fight congressional myopia. His main tool for doing so is the veto, which Bush steadfastly refuses to exercise. Only Thomas Jefferson, our third president, served longer without vetoing anything. Consequently, Congress has learned that it can ignore all of Bush's veto threats, knowing they are empty.
Foreign policy realists understand that military force needs to be exercised from time to time to make diplomacy effective. It has always seemed odd to me that Bush can understand this point so clearly in the international arena, yet fail to see that the same principle applies when dealing with Congress. He has to veto something occasionally -- not just make threats -- if he expects Congress to follow his budgetary priorities.
Moreover, Bush refuses to ask Congress for any budget rescissions -- requests to cancel previously enacted spending. Nor does he use his constitutional authority to impound pork barrel spending that is not authorized by law.
The fact is that some 95 percent of so-called earmarks in the budget appear only in report language and not as line items in appropriations bills, according to a recent Congressional Research Service report. The president could simply order his Cabinet secretaries to ignore them if he chose to. Instead, Bush insists that he needs line-tem veto authority to cancel earmarks, even though it would apply to just 5 percent of the total.
Still, Congress surely bears much of the blame for economic policy getting off on the wrong track. It wasn't President Bush, but then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Republican of Texas, who said last year that there was no fat left to cut in the budget. And it is not President Bush, but Republicans in Congress, who today are talking about stupid ideas like sending out $100 "rebate" checks to offset higher gasoline costs, windfall profits taxes on oil companies and bringing lawsuits against oil-exporting countries, as if that would do any good.
This epidemic of idiocy in Congress is starting to wear down even die-hard Republicans. Rich Lowry, editor of National Review magazine, recently said that Capitol Hill, where Republicans control both houses of Congress, is being run by "a bunch of bungling, spend-thrift, unreformable, tin-eared, unimaginative, hysterical pols."
Lowry pointed out that as low as Bush's poll numbers are, Congress' are even lower. In the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll, Bush is supported by only 36 percent of Americans, but just 22 percent approve of the job Congress is doing. That's worse than the numbers for Congress at a similar point in 1994, the year voters dumped the Democrats and gave control of both houses to Republicans for the first time in 40 years.
On the blogs, one is seeing more and more conservatives saying that it might be necessary for Republicans to lose the House or Senate this fall to give them a wake-up call and get them back on the right course before the next presidential election. One of those making this argument is Ross Douthat of Atlantic Monthly magazine.
Douthat's main argument is that the presidential election in 2008 will be "tremendously significant" and that a weak Republican Congress is going to be an albatross around the Republican presidential nominee's neck. Says Douthat, "Having (Senate Majority Leader Bill) Frist, (Speaker of the House Dennis) Hastert, (House Majority Leader John) Boehner and company to kick around for another two years is only going to strengthen the Democrats' hand."
Douthat also believes that conservatives are more likely to have a wide-open debate, "informed by a sense of political urgency," about what they stand for if Republicans suffer defeat in 2006. Keeping congressional Republicans in power for another two years "could ruin the right's prospect for a generation," he fears.
Republicans in Congress are convinced that gerrymandering and a big advantage in fund raising will keep them in control. Democrats would have to win virtually every race seen today as winnable to get a majority in either the House or Senate. But there could be more seats in play if large numbers of conservatives stay home on Election Day.
It should be remembered that Republicans won in 1994 not because they got a lot more votes than usual, but because so many dispirited Democrats didn't vote that year.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on November 4, 2006 01:06:32 PM
Why Some Republicans Want to Lose
Disillusioned Conservatives
Believe Party Has Gone Adrift,
See Value in Democratic Congress
By YOCHI J. DREAZEN
September 27, 2006; Page A4
WASHINGTON -- As the White House and its Republican allies on Capitol Hill work to retain control of Congress in November's elections, a small but vocal band of conservative iconoclasts say they would prefer to see their own party lose.
The array of former members of Congress and officials from Republican administrations dating to the 1970s are using opinion articles, speeches and interviews to make the surprising -- and, to many of their friends and colleagues, near-heretical -- argument that it would be better for the country if their party lost. Some say they plan to vote Democratic for the first time in their lives. The Republican rebels say the modern Republican Party has so abandoned its conservative beliefs that it deserves to be defeated by the Democrats.
Three factors are driving the conservative backlash against the Republican-led Congress. Fiscal hawks are furious about the growth of the federal government. Conservative lawyers such as Bruce Fein, who worked in the Nixon Justice Department and Reagan Federal Communications Commission, are upset that Congress allowed President Bush to claim expansive powers to eavesdrop on American citizens and detain suspected militants without trial. Others say the war in Iraq is a costly diversion from the war on terror.
Other Republicans couch their desire for Republican losses in political terms, arguing that Democratic control of Congress for at least two years would increase the chances of Republicans retaining the presidency in 2008, by giving Republican candidates high-profile Democratic targets.
"Every Republican I know thinks Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are the best things they have going for them," wrote Bruce Bartlett, a Treasury Department official during the presidency of Mr. Bush's father, referring to the top-ranking Democrats in the House and Senate. "Giving these inept leaders higher profiles would be a gift to conservatives everywhere," he added in an essay, part of a series by conservatives published recently in Washington Monthly magazine, under the heading: "Time for us to go."
"Republicans need a wake-up call," Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman who now hosts an MSNBC talk show, says in an interview. "We ran in 1994 against runaway spending, exploding deficits and corruption. But with Republicans in charge of both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue, what do we have? The same runaway spending, record deficits and culture of corruption." He uses his show as a forum for those views and has published two essays on the theme.
Most Republicans, of course, don't think it is time for the party to go anywhere and are irked at those who suggest otherwise. Mr. Scarborough says that after his essay was published in Washington Monthly, his invitation to serve as master of ceremonies at a congressional fund-raiser with President Bush was revoked under White House pressure. A White House spokeswoman says the administration decided "that there were better options for an emcee" at the event.
Even many conservative critics of the current Congress say they plan to hold their noses and work to retain Republican majorities in the House and the Senate, arguing that Democrats can't be trusted to keep the country safe from terrorism or to sustain economic growth.
And White House officials wouldn't welcome the stream of subpoenas and investigations that could come from Democratic-controlled congressional committees.
The Club for Growth, a conservative economic-policy advocacy group, says it will give $20 million this election cycle to Republicans who share its antitax beliefs, regardless of the candidates' chances of winning a general election. The group backed conservative challenger Steve Laffey's unsuccessful primary campaign against moderate Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, despite the Republican establishment's belief that Mr. Laffey was unelectable.
Pat Toomey, president of the Club for Growth, says the group would be happy to see Republican moderates lose -- Club for Growth declines to support Mr. Chafee in what is expected to be a tight race against his Democratic challenger -- but stops short of campaigning against Mr. Chafee and other Republicans in the general election,
"Being Republican has to stand for more than having an 'R' after your name, and if that puts some seats in jeopardy, so be it," Mr. Toomey says. "But accept losing the Republican majority altogether? I just can't quite go there yet."
Mr. Scarborough, for his part, says he can "build a strong intellectual argument" for voting Democratic but can't bring himself to actually do so.
For the moment, Democrats appear less fractured than their rivals across the aisle. Many Democrats are so eager for an electoral victory that they are pragmatically backing candidates they once might have shunned.
Some Republicans, by contrast, having tasted congressional power for 12 years now -- and control of the House, the Senate and the White House for nearly six -- are ready to try being the opposition. Mr. Fein, the former Reagan and Nixon appointee, describes himself as a lifelong conservative who has voted for Republican candidates all his life and is disgusted by Democratic support for affirmative action -- which he sees as institutionalized racism -- and economic populism.
But he says that congressional Republicans have forfeited their right to control both chambers by failing to confront Mr. Bush over his expression of executive power, his interpretation of due process and habeas corpus, and his willingness to ignore legislation that he sees as an infringement of his war-fighting powers.
"A Democratic Congress will obviously not be promoting a conservative agenda, but at least they'll have the incentive, which is critical right now, to exercise oversight and restraint on the president," he says. "And that's much, much more than you can say for the Republicans who currently run Congress."
Mr. Fein recently bought a home in Florida and says he is scrambling to register to vote there in November, when he plans to do something he has never done before: cast a ballot for a Democrat. He says Democratic candidate Christine Jennings, who is running to fill the House seat vacated by Republican Senate candidate Katherine Harris, is "just the type of moderate I like."
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on November 4, 2006 01:08:22 PM
WASHINGTON, May 13 — Some of President Bush's most influential conservative Christian allies are becoming openly critical of the White House and Republicans in Congress, warning that they will withhold their support in the midterm elections unless Congress does more to oppose same-sex marriage, obscenity and abortion.
"There is a growing feeling among conservatives that the only way to cure the problem is for Republicans to lose the Congressional elections this fall," said Richard Viguerie, a conservative direct-mail pioneer.
Mr. Viguerie also cited dissatisfaction with government spending, the war in Iraq and the immigration-policy debate, which Mr. Bush is scheduled to address in a televised speech on Monday night.
"I can't tell you how much anger there is at the Republican leadership," Mr. Viguerie said. "I have never seen anything like it."
In the last several weeks, Dr. James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and one of the most influential Christian conservatives, has publicly accused Republican leaders of betraying the social conservatives who helped elect them in 2004. He has also warned in private meetings with about a dozen of the top Republicans in Washington that he may turn critic this fall unless the party delivers on conservative goals.
And at a meeting in Northern Virginia this weekend of the Council for National Policy, an alliance of the most prominent Christian conservatives, several participants said sentiment toward the White House and Republicans in Congress had deteriorated sharply since the 2004 elections.
When the group met in the summer of 2004, it resembled a pep rally for Mr. Bush and his allies on Capitol Hill, and one session focused on how to use state initiatives seeking to ban same-sex marriage to help turn out the vote. This year, some participants are complaining that as soon as Mr. Bush was re-elected he stopped expressing his support for a constitutional amendment banning such unions.
Christian conservative leaders have often threatened in the months before an election to withhold their support for Republicans in an effort to press for their legislative goals. In the 1990's, Dr. Dobson in particular became known for his jeremiads against the Republican party, most notably in the months before the 1998 midterm elections.
But the complaints this year are especially significant because they underscore how the broad decline in public approval for Mr. Bush and Congressional Republicans is beginning to cut into their core supporters. The threatened defections come just two years after many Christian conservatives — most notably Dr. Dobson — abandoned much of their previous reservations and poured energy into electing Republicans in 2004.
Dr. Dobson gave his first presidential endorsement to Mr. Bush and held get-out-the-vote rallies that attracted thousands of admirers in states with pivotal Senate races while Focus on the Family and many of its allies helped register voters in conservative churches.
Republican officials, who were granted anonymity to speak publicly because of the sensitivity of the situation, acknowledged the difficult political climate but said they planned to rally conservatives by underscoring the contrast with Democrats and emphasizing the recent confirmations of two conservatives to the Supreme Court.
Midterm Congressional elections tend to be won by whichever side can motivate more true believers to vote. Dr. Dobson and other conservatives are renewing their complaints about the Republicans at a time when several recent polls have shown sharp declines in approval among Republicans and conservatives. And compared with other constituencies, evangelical Protestants have historically been suspicious of the worldly business of politics and thus more prone to stay home unless they feel clear moral issues are at stake.
"When a president is in a reasonably strong position, these kind of leaders don't have a lot of leverage," said Charlie Cook, a nonpartisan political analyst. "But when the president is weak, they tend to have a lot of leverage."
Dr. Dobson, whose daily radio broadcast has millions of listeners, has already signaled his willingness to criticize Republican leaders. In a recent interview with Fox News on the eve of a visit to the White House, he accused Republicans of "just ignoring those that put them in office."
Dr. Dobson cited the House's actions on two measures that passed over the objections of social conservatives: a hate-crime bill that extended protections to gay people, and increased support for embryonic stem cell research.
"There's just very, very little to show for what has happened," Dr. Dobson said, "and I think there's going to be some trouble down the road if they don't get on the ball."
According to people who were at the meetings or were briefed on them, Dr. Dobson has made the same point more politely in a series of private conversations over the last two weeks in meetings with several top Republicans, including Karl Rove, the president's top political adviser; Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the Republican leader; Representative J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, the House speaker; and Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the majority leader.
"People are getting concerned that they have not seen some of these issues move forward that were central to the 2004 election," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, who attended the meetings.
Richard D. Land, a top official of the Southern Baptist Convention who has been one of Mr. Bush's most loyal allies, said in an interview last week that many conservatives were upset that Mr. Bush had not talked more about a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
"A lot of people are disappointed that he hasn't put as much effort into the marriage amendment as he did for the prescription drug benefit or Social Security reform," Dr. Land said.
Republicans say they are taking steps to revive their support among Christian conservatives. On Thursday night, Mr. Rove made the case for the party at a private meeting of the Council for National Policy, participants said.
In addition to reminding conservatives of the confirmations of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court, party strategists say the White House and Senate Republicans are escalating their fights against the Democrats over conservative nominees to lower federal courts, and the Senate is set to revive the same-sex marriage debate next month with a vote on the proposed amendment.
But it is unclear how much Congressional Republicans will be able to do for social conservatives before the next election.
No one expects the same-sex marriage amendment to pass this year. Republican leaders have not scheduled votes on a measure to outlaw transporting minors across state lines for abortions, and the proposal faces long odds in the Senate. A measure to increase obscenity fines for broadcasters is opposed by media industry trade groups, pitting Christian conservatives against the business wing of the party, and Congressional leaders have not committed to bring it to a vote.
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and another frequent participant in the Council for National Policy, argued that Christian conservatives were hurting their own cause.
"If the Republicans do poorly in 2006," Mr. Norquist said, "the establishment will explain that it was because Bush was too conservative, specifically on social and cultural issues."
Dr. Dobson declined to comment. His spokesman, Paul Hetrick, said that Dr. Dobson was "on a fact-finding trip to see where Republicans are regarding the issues that concern values voters most, especially the Marriage Protection Act," and that it was too soon to tell the results.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on November 4, 2006 01:20:54 PM
Some conservatives are upset with this admin. because of their allowing this spending.
But the FACT remains that MOST ALL dems VOTED FOR these expenditures. So...them being in office won't change a thing. LOL
And on the first article saying "Moreover, Bush refuses to ask Congress for any budget rescissions -- requests to cancel previously enacted spending. Nor does he use his constitutional authority to impound pork barrel spending that is not authorized by law."
This, imo, is the dem party wanting hoping to have it BOTH ways. lol They SCREAM bloodly murder EVERY time this administration has even suggested a CUT in ANYTHING. They've OPPOSED ANY CUTS.
So...again...just more 'playing the game' sort of nonsense. This President HAS recommended many cuts....but the Congress hasn't had enough support to do so. WHY? Cause they ALL want to be re-elected. They are, after all, nothing but politicans. LOL LOL
And IF these same conservatives decide NOT to vote for their conservative reps.....they can't possible THINK that things will get better on the spending issue.
All they have to do is look at the LONG< LONG list of what their new leader wants to spend TRILLIONS on. Think that's REALLY going to REDUCE anything???
If you do...you're only fooling yourself.
This admin. has done NOTHING that the dems don't always do....except they haven't raised our taxes like the dems have and will again. They've given us a reduction in our tax rates.
Nothing will make these 'protesting' conservatives happier....especially NOT voting in a liberal house.
That's only cutting off their nose to spite their faces. LOL
While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation:
What would a Democrat president have done at that point? Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack.
Ann Coulter
posted on November 10, 2006 08:04:56 AM
I guess it was the Republicans that were having the interior designers come in to measure the drapes. It was the Repugs that were to busy trying to redecorate their offices before the election
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on November 10, 2006 10:35:27 AM
As we can see from the articles offered by logansdad.....HE PROVED what I've said...and some here laughed about.
This President is NOT a neo-con. And his neocon base were upset with him because they didn't feel he'd been true to conservative values. And by allowed such spending, was acting just like the dems do...spend spend spend away.
They voted for CONSERVATIVE dems...rather than more left leaning republicans who weren't acting like republicans.
There are many RINO'S in the republican party - republicans in name ONLY - not actions/votes. So those who wanted to pull the country BACK to the republican values...voted for the more conservative dems. NOT the radical progressive left. LOL
While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation:
What would a Democrat president have done at that point? Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack.
Ann Coulter
posted on November 10, 2006 12:26:10 PM
This is a truly memorable piece of rationalization. Well done!
They voted for CONSERVATIVE dems...rather than more left leaning republicans who weren't acting like republicans....There are many RINO'S in the republican party - republicans in name ONLY - not actions/votes. So those who wanted to pull the country BACK to the republican values...voted for the more conservative dems. NOT the radical progressive left. LOL
____________________________________________
Grow your own Dope. Plant a Republican.
posted on November 10, 2006 12:39:18 PM
Call it what ever rings your chimes, profe.
It's a FACT that there are some conservative DEMS and there are some liberal republicans.
The dem base alone would NOT have been enough to change the power in our Congress around. There just aren't that many of them [enough dems to do so.].
This election was decided by a TON of independents...that were upset with how things are/have been going....and even you liberals/dems HERE have been posting links that you were so happy with BECAUSE they were pointing out how this President was LOSING his BASE supporters...because he was acting like/allowing to pass TOO much spending.
You fool no one. NOW you'd like to THINK you won because most American's agree with the liberal base???
That's just NOT the case. As can easily be seen...by the conservative and moderate DEMS that WERE newly elected.
~~~~~~~~~~~
While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation:
What would a Democrat president have done at that point? Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack.
Ann Coulter
[ edited by Linda_K on Nov 10, 2006 12:42 PM ]
posted on November 10, 2006 04:13:51 PMYou fool no one. NOW you'd like to THINK you won because most American's agree with the liberal base???
Who is the bigger fool? I thought it was Crybaby_K that said the Repugs were going to remain in control of both the House and the Senate. Do you want a towel to wipe that egg off your face?
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
