Category: Politics

After the Colorado recall success, I got the impression that some gun owners online thought that pro-Second Amendment forces could tackle any anti-gun effort anywhere. As any reader of this blog knows, we’re fans of political reality, so cheering on a recall effort should be done only after careful consideration.

There was a minor recall attempt in Exeter, RI that went badly for gun owners there, and now the leaders feel vindicated.

This is just one more reminder that it’s absolutely vital that activist gun owners get involved in their local communities so that they can factor in feelings on the ground about lawmakers and consider all of the details that may make a difference between victory and defeat that might embolden anti-gun forces.

We were both pretty cautious about the latest Colorado recall effort, but then a state resident pointed out important factors (like the length of her term and district makeup) that made the case for recall. And, even though the Democratic replacement is still anti-gun, we won that since it still sent a political message that just like your healthcare plan, you can’t keep your seat.

While being tuned into the gun debate around the country is handy to see what other people do to successfully promote the Second Amendment, it’s more important to be involved locally so that you remind your own lawmakers that you are watching their votes before there’s a need to recall them.

This is veering off topic, but while I have the makings of another tab-clearing news link, everyone is all atwitter about the Ryan budget deal. I haven’t been able to get all that worked up about it, to be honest, because it seemed another case of the grassroots conservatives wanting to fight on every front all of the time rather than picking battles carefully. I see this quite often in the gun issue. A lot of people got worked up over UFA renewal, but it’s the wrong battle to fight at the wrong time. The bill has nearly zero impact on every day gun rights, and for a lot of reasons I think it’s fine to kick that fight ten years down the road for now.

Megan McArdle wrote an article today I think is correct in term of analyzing the Ryan deal.

But if they do nothing at all, many reason, they get all the sequestration cuts. Why trade them away?

To avoid another showdown. Though I, too, would like government to shrink, I think this is the right policy trade-off; shutdowns are making it harder and harder to talk about rational budget policy in this town. And tactically, I think this is a clear win for the Republican Party. The last thing they need right now is to take the focus off the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and revive Obama’s flagging poll numbers with an ill-timed budget battle. Their best shot at a budget they really like is, after all, to retake the Senate in 2014.

RTWT. From my reading of it, the Ryan deal is meant to avert another government shutdown, which the Democrats have been preparing to do. Another shutdown would be a disaster for the GOP, because as Megan says, it would take the focus off the flaming train wreck that the ACA is turned out to be. That’s why the Dems would love to precipitate another shutdown in order to distract the low-information voters from their own failures and focus everything back on how awful the GOP is.

Of course, the GOP won’t say that, because they would rather piss on your leg and tell you it’s raining, and that, I think, pretty much sums up the GOP’s problem, which is messaging and communication. That gets back to what Glenn Reynolds noted:

I think that’s right. I think the problem is that a lot of the grassroots don’t trust the GOP leadership to do that. The leadership might want to think about what it can do to build such trust.

No one trusts them because a) the 1994 revolution turned into a non-revolution, and b) the GOP sucks at communicating. The Ryan deal may be necessary, but the GOP leadership would rather kick the grassroots in the teeth and offer platitudes than talk to them like actual adults. Want to understand the popularity of Chris Christie? Because he communicates, and treats voters like adults. Corbett, by contrast, just hiked my gas taxes and then has the nerve to send me a fundraising letter bragging about how he eliminated the retail gas tax (failing to mention that he accomplished this through a massive hike in the wholesale gas tax). Maybe we had to hike the gas tax. Maybe that was the only way to get a transportation bill funded. But don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining. Level with me. The GOP might be playing a bad hand the best they can right now, but you’d never know it, because they have no idea how to communicate to voters. If you ask me, that’s the GOP’s number one problem.

Ace talks about how Mitch McConnell is looking for just a few, good, bland Republicans. Ace of Spades generally have good insights into the political process, so if you like that kind of thing they are worth a read. If I had to pick which major internal factors are causing the GOP’s woes, I’d put them in this order.

The DC-based consulting firms and think tanks that the GOP has come to rely on are more concerned about milking the movement for their livelihoods than they are about actually winning hearts and minds (and thus elections). They are also completely out of touch with the mood of the American People.

Conservatives pay too much attention to money changers in the temple; people who tell the grassroots soothing things they want to hear rather than preaching reality and helping grassroots conservatives be more effective. I’m not one who thinks talk radio is necessarily good for the conservative movement. I’m noticing more conspiratorial nonsense turning up locally, and it can almost be guaranteed once you look it up, it’s being spread by a talk radio personality. I don’t mean Alex Jones and the dark corners of talk radio, I mean people like Glenn Beck. Helping people “connect the dots” as he sees them might make Beck a lot of money, but it’s not doing any favors for the conservative movement. When local politicos see a bunch of people showing up at meetings yammering about “Agenda 21” and other UN conspiracy BS, those local politicos get scared, and rightfully so. Because to anyone who isn’t wrapped up in the world of the money changers, it sounds nuts.

Our movement just recruits some awful political talent. Part of that problem is that the angry grassroots have more outrage than experience, and have no idea what qualities you need in someone who can, say, win and hold a senate seat. That someone holds similar views to you, or even popular views, does not translate into electability. Sam Rohrer was the popular conservative heart throb in Pennsylvania for a while, but he was always a lousy fundraiser, and couldn’t really seem to get a statewide campaign going. I don’t care what your beliefs are, if you can’t raise money you’re toast.

I am no fan of the GOP status quo. If I didn’t think it would put McConnell’s seat at risk, I’d be enthusiastic about a primary challenge. McConnell loves feeding at the pork barrel, and I’ve had about enough of that. But what I’ve seen, again and again, are these grassroots primary challenges that essentially surrender the seat to the Democrats because the grassroots candidate was completely unelectable. Having a candidate that believes a lot of the same things you do won’t do a lick of good if you can’t get them elected.