Jeff Becker's blog

It was frustration with the Washington State Republican Party (WSRP) that first prompted me to refer to myself as a ‘Republican by default’ several years ago. It stemmed from all the trips to the voting booth where I couldn’t find a candidate that I could vote for so I ended up voting against the other candidate. I still voted Republican, but only because the other guy was worse.

That same feeling returned when I showed up at the caucuses in February of this year. Fred Thompson had already withdrawn and Mitt Romney withdrew shortly before we the event. The base of the party wasn’t having a party. We were stuck with a candidate who had kicked us to the curb several times in the last six years as he journeyed leftward, probably the result of his previous defeat in the battle for the party’s presidential nomination.

Thanks to the WSRP my primary votes never really mattered, if they held a primary at all. It was the Nov. 2000 general election that I cast a vote for Bush. At that time he looked like a pretty good candidate. It was probably the first time I could actually vote for someone who would win. But even that would lead to disappointment.

His first term in office was not a disappointment. Then came the 2004 election. The ‘Bush brand’ was carrying the party and kept the Republicans in control of both houses and the White House. But the Bush brand would soon deteriorate, thanks in large part to Scott McCellan’s incompetence, to a point where it was no better than the generic brand.

Unfortunately, by that time, the only Republicans in constant view of the public were in the White House. All others were ignored by the media and most of the nation (unless they messed up). As a result the Republican ‘brand’ was replaced by the inferior and unpopular Bush brand.

The base of the party, which had gotten Bush elected twice was kicked to the curb at the advice of Karl Rove. What was once the dominating factor in the party’s politics had become nothing more than a voting block to be manipulated by a cunning consultant known to his only superior as ‘the turd blossom’. So his boss picked the flower and left the rest in the field for us to step in.

It’s amazing to me that the guy that the left has hated almost as much as Bush became the very person who undermined the base of the Republican party and left it floundering in it’s search for representation. By dominating national politics and media he left us divided and vulnerable to indecision (Hunter, Tancredo, Thompson) and to hucksters. In the end we ended up with someone we don’t like who was chosen more by the media than by the base of the party. They should be thanking this guy and carrying him on their shoulders as a hero to their party.

Not ready to give up I watched closely to see what the party was doing this year in the county where I live. As it turns out, they were doing almost nothing. They had very little to offer in most races and some races would have no one from the party on the ballot. They allowed the next county over (King County GOP) to basically select the candidate for the only county-wide office where there was more than one potential candidate.

Looking at the county GOP party I saw many layers of differing views. It was the result of decades of manipulation from various factions, some from within the county and some from the outside, that successively wrested control from the previous victor. For a while I wondered if it could ever be turned around. But I gave up on that idea. It would require a uniting force where there could be none. The views were too different and resentment too deep.

It used to be that I only had to look forward to defeat on the local, county and state level. Now I can look forward to it in both houses on the national level. The presidential nominee has a pretty good chance of winning, but I probably won’t vote for him. I’m not in a swing state. In fact this state is so far left that if my vote would ever matter to swing delegates in the electoral college to the Republican candidate, it would already be a landslide on the national level, which would mean that, again, my vote wouldn’t matter.

The party that was once the party of Lincoln, civil rights, welfare reform and the balanced budget couldn’t sell itself as being any better than the party of lawyers, liberal media commentators and labor union bosses.

We hear slogans quietly muttered to one another that don’t instill much confidence.

“Yeah, but the other guy is worse”.

[Cross -posted at 5views.com]

I’ve been reading some of the posts over at TheNextRight.com. It covers the spectrum of Republican opinion with a majority of the posts being relatively conservative.

There’s a pretty good article about the Ron Paul campaign. It puts it into context fairly well. I’m not a Paul fan so I’m guessing that some of his die-hard supporters would differ with the opinion presented in that post.

The left-leaning side of the site is a mixed-bag on some of the ‘moderate’ (which I consider to be ‘liberal Republican’) posts. One such post, which I won’t link to, was a typical McCain supporter bashing principled conservatives with the usual tripe. I don’t bother pointing out the error when someone posts garbage like that because I’ve found that it isn’t worth the effort.

What McCain supporters are trying to do is to paint conservatives who continue to oppose him as though they are just being petty and emotional about the issue. I do understand some of where they’re coming from, and it doesn’t paint a very good picture of them.

For the most part conservative writers and politicians stick to the issues rather than make ad hominem attacks with no basis. That type of pointless trashing generally comes from the left. Since McCain is so liberal, as Republicans go, it’s no surprise that some of his followers would be liberal. So when they post on a blog site, they post like a liberal would.

It’s fairly typical for people who have no solid arguments in a debate to turn and attack their opponents with baseless arguments. For the last eight years we’ve seen plenty in what’s known as the Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS). There’s no need to point any of it out since it’s in every liberal newspaper almost every day. The proof that it’s baseless is that they’ve been pushing for Bush’s impeachment for the entire eight years and haven’t come up with a single charge against him that held up to even the slightest scrutiny. In many cases amateur bloggers were able to provide sufficient proof that the attacks were without merit.

Such is the case when liberal Republicans attack principled conservatives. Their main points in any discussion quickly fall apart and they’re left without any defense of their position. So they do what any liberal would do, they attack the messenger. It’s relatively easy to spot, particularly in the later stages of exasperation. That’s when the Hitler comparisons come out. So far it hasn’t gotten that bad, but give it time. These are liberals we’re talking about.

[Cross-posted at 5views.com]

Does anyone remember the connection between Scott McClellan and Bush's approval numbers?

On July 6, 2003, Joe Wilson's op-ed appeared in the New York Times, where he claimed that something G. W. Bush had said months before wasn't true.  Putting aside the question of the validity of Wilson's statements, the timing was interesting.

Over the next week, Ari Fleisher and Condoleeza Rice did an admirable job of explaining the situation and dealing with the incessant questions from the White House press corps.

On July 15, 2003, Scott McClellan took over as White House Press Secretary and began leading the press briefings.  Here's a link to his first press briefing.  Personally, I think it showed his incompetence.  That was the beginning of the end of Bush's high approval ratings.

Here's a list of links to White House press briefings.  Peruse them for yourself and see if McClellan did a competent job as Press Secy.  My personal opinion, he was a victim of Murphy's Law who got the position because Bush is loyal to the people who are loyal to him, even if they're not up to the job.  Consider the Harriet Myers SCOTUS nomination.

Here's a chart of Bush's approval ratings. Under McClellan's watch (July '03 to April '06) Bushes numbers dropped below pre-9/11 levels and below 50%, 40% and almost to 30%, and they basically stayed there.  The only time that the ratings climbed was when Saddam was captured.  Otherwise, it was in a steady decline the entire time he was press secretary.

The Bush administration has been widely criticized by conservatives for not selling a conservative agenda (or even the Bush agenda where it differed) to the public.   Scott McClellan was a big part of that failure.

He's no Ari Fleischer. Even Tony Snow couldn't reverse the trend.

His 'tell-all book'?  Considering the source, I won't bother reading it.  It's already being discredited by his co-workers.

[Cross-posted at 5views.com]

Wired magazine, known for it's zealous focus on the latest crazes, takes a look at the latest environmental craze and what people think they should do about it. They don't actually look at the validity of the anthropogenic issue or the dire consequences debate, but at least they add a little bit of objectivity to the climate of climate change.

Putting aside the absolute lie known as 'the coming ice age'. And ignoring the food shortages and high prices caused by biofuel mandates, not to mention the slashing and burning of rain forest in Brazil because of their extremely high biofuel mandates. And forget for a moment the economic impact on the timber industry because so-called scientists failed to realize that spotted owls will fornicate anywhere (they just happen to prefer old growth forests the way hippies prefer rock concerts). The list goes on, but lets ignore all that for the moment. I'm starting to wonder which will be the next abject failure of the environmentalist movement.

I'm addressing this to the local liberal set who go crazy over the crazes. Since they're like most liberals they never really think things through. Let's hope that this gets them thinking instead of reacting to whatever bright ideas blow their way.