Morning Briefing
For September 17, 2013
The
benefit of being the Editor is I get to re-run the top story, which was
originally posted over Labor Day Weekend and got buried. Republicans need to seriously pay attention to it.
— Erick
|
1. This is “Read My Lips” All Over Again
During
the 1988 Republican Convention, then Vice President George H. W. Bush
uttered a phrase that would destroy his Presidency — “Read my lips, no
new taxes.”
Just two
years later, voters realized they had read a lie on President Bush’s
lips. He negotiated a budget agreement with Democrats in the United
States Congress that raised taxes. Republicans in the House of
Representatives rallied against their own President. Ed Rollins, then
Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, advised
Republicans to campaign against the President in 1990. “Do not hesitate
to distance yourself from the President,” Rollins wrote in a famous
memo. President Bush demanded congressional Republicans fire Rollins,
but the House Republicans held on him. The House GOP lost a net of 8
seats and the Senate GOP lost 1 seat.
President
Bush would ride a wave of popularity in 1991 due to victory in the Gulf
War and use a 91% approval rating to have Ed Rollins fired by refusing
to campaign with Republican candidates until Rollins left. A year later,
with a struggling economy, a conservative base that would neither
forget nor forgive his lie, and a primary challenger named Pat Buchanan
to embarrass him in New Hampshire with a stronger than expected showing,
President George H. W. Bush would be defeated by Bill Clinton.
Conservatives were willing to throw out President Bush because of his
lie. Many of them rallied to a third party, H. Ross Perot, who garnered
18.9% of the vote.
Bush
got 63% of self-described moderate Republicans and 82% of
self-described conservative Republicans. Compare that to four years
later after one full term of Bill Clinton. Bob Dole would get 72% of
moderate Republicans, up 9% from George H. W. Bush, and 88% of
conservative Republicans, up 6% from George H. W. Bush. Among
conservative independents, Bush got 53% with Perot getting 30%. Bob Dole
would get 60% of that demographic four years later.
In the
Republican Primary of 1992, Pat Buchanan, explaining his decision to
primary President Bush went straight back to the 1990 tax increase, said
If
the country wants to go in a liberal direction, if the country wants to
go in the direction of [Senate Democratic Leader] George Mitchell and
[Speaker] Tom Foley, it doesn’t bother me as long as I’ve made the best
case I can. What I can’t stand are the back-room deals. They’re all in
on it, the insider game, the establishment game—this is what we’re
running against.
One
upstart candidate who took Rollins’s advice to not wrap his arms around
President Bush was a state representative from Ohio named John Boehner.
Boehner had primaried a sitting Republican, Rep. Buz Lukens, who had
refused to resign after a sex scandal. Boehner, in a heavily Republican
district, beat Lukens in the primary, then won the general. Perhaps it
was the heavy tilt to the GOP in that district that left Boehner immune
to the national angst over George H. W. Bush’s lie. I say perhaps,
because John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and the rest of the Republican
leadership in Washington are on the verge of their own “Read My Lips”
lie. . . . please click here for the rest of the post →
2. Texas Rep. John Culberson’s Staff Hate Sen. Ted Cruz For Holding Events in Texas
Everything that is wrong with Washington Republicans is summed up in this story.
You have a
top aide for Eric Cantor going into the Republican Study Committee
meeting to discuss terms of surrender over the continuing resolution and
debt ceiling.
You have an aide to Senator Ted Cruz respond with a solution to the Cantor aide.
Then you
have an aide to Rep. John Culberson of Texas start yelling at the Ted
Cruz aide that Senator Cruz isn’t “dealing in reality.”
This is where it gets funny and ridiculous.
Rep. Culberson’s aide’s chief complaint is that the a sitting Senator from Texas dared to hold an event in … well … Texas. . . . please click here for the rest of the post →
3. Pew and USA Today find no tipping point for Affordable Care Act
Sometimes,
as in the case of Roe v. Wade, a change in the law of the land will
result in a large change of public opinion in favor of the new change.
Once the change is made, certain levels of resistance go away, and
others just come to accept it.
Not so in the case of Obamacare, also called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“PPACA”), Pew finds. . . . please click here for the rest of the post →
4. The 5 underpinnings of the Cuccinelli comeback
Virginia
Republican Gubernatorial candidate, Ken Cuccinelli has ranked
consistently behind Democrat candidate, Terry McAuliffe in polls over
the past few months. But
55 days out, political animals know that an eternity remains for
Cuccinelli to make up the difference, which is exactly what he will do. Recent polls have McAuliffe up by 5-8 points. But this is a soft lead. Cuccinelli’s base support is strong while no one in the democrat camp is thrilled about McAuliffe. There are more than a couple of reasons to be confident of a Cuccinelli comeback over the coming (less than) two months. . . . please click here for the rest of the post →
5. Leaders, Followers, Fence-Sitters, and Obamacare
When
conservatives look for elected Republicans to stand for our values, we
are not just looking for someone who might vote with conservatives when
convenient; we are looking for someone who will give voice to
conservatives. Hence, we are looking for leaders – people who will articulate the message, fight the conservative battles, and move the polls. We have no need for more followers, fence-sitters, and finger lickers. The
recent developments in the fight to defund Obamacare serve as a
quintessential example of this divide between the leaders and the
fence-sitters.
After
several months of hard work from Jim DeMint, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Tom
Graves, Mark Meadows, and some of the outside groups, there is
tremendous momentum behind using the budget bills to force the issue on
Obamacare once and for all. Obamacare is now more unpopular than ever. It is so unpopular that Republicans are viewed as more favorable on healthcare than Democrats. This has never happened in years. . . . please click here for the rest of the post →
6. Grow Up, People. Including You, @DavidFrum
Oh the irony of me telling others to grow up. Even I see that. But seriously people, grow up.
As
a shooter roamed the Navy Yard and body lie dying, but still warm,
several conservatives in my tweet feed were already back in full Trayvon
ridicule mode. They were tweeting that the shooter was a black man. The
tweets weren’t to try to help out the police or anyone else. They were
tweets ridiculing the media, suggesting the media wouldn’t report
accurately on the event, etc. because the shooter was a black man.
Tweets couched as getting the media’s attention that another black man
has gone on another shooting spree.
And servicemen lay dying in Washington with a shooter on the move.
Then
David Frum started up with anti-gun nonsense. As a shooter roamed the
Navy Yard, a relatively secure facility, and as people who worked there
were dead or dying or bleeding, David Frum became a twitter stream about
gun control — comparing America to third world countries.
At
the time, we did not know if it was terrorism. We did not know if there
were multiple shooters. We did not know how many were wounded. We did
not know how many were dead.
Yet some decided it was, in the heat of the moment, already time to drag race, politics, and policy arguments into the fray. . . . please click here for the rest of the post →
| >> Today's Sponsor |
No comments:
Post a Comment