lgm's blog

"Only dead fish go with the flow."  So says the most respected member of the Republican Party, Sarah Palin. 

Well, this blog's writers are drifting with the belly-ups.  They wanted to bring the Republican party reason, professionalism, and diversity of thought.  But the floe (sic) is going the other way.  Tea partiers don't care about facts or resposibilities.  They want government to cut taxes, but no cutting Medicare, or the military, or Social Security or any of the other big ticket items.  They want to ignore science, not just on global warming, but on evolution, geology, and economics. 

And diversity of thought -- forget about it.  The tiniest slip on those slimy scales and you're a RINO.  Republican Senators who used to be considered conservative, Lindsey Graham for instance, are being threatened. 

A responsible politician would dissociate herself or himself from these crazies.  But right now, these crazies are the only ones willing to vote Republican.  So our brave saviors of the Party -- the Next Right -- are holding their noses. 

The Next Right blog was supposed to be a feather in Pattrick Ruffini's cap.  His web page lists Next Right as one of the innovations that will revitalize the Republican party and the conservative movement.  Well, he has walked away from his blog.  Either that or he has nothing to contribute to it.  Now Ruffini should hope that people reading his personal page will not check to see how Next Right is doing.  It's pretty sick.

It turns out that nobody is interested in a blog without content.  The lack of content means lack of new Republican ideas. 

But that doesn't mean the Republicans aren't going in a new direction.  They are.  Leading the way is Glen Beck and the Tea Partiers.  They're dragging the Republican party toward the right, away from the main stream where national consensus lives, and away from truth and responsibility where libertarians claim to be, and away from compassion and forgiveness where Christian spirit was supposed to hold sway.

The good news is that Americans, even those frustrated with Democrats having trouble agreeing on health care reform, will soon enough figure out that the alternative is not fiscal conservatives, but hate filled racist irresponsible incompetents who make Bush, Jr. look like an ace.

This blog is dead now.  It gets maybe two comments per day.  Presumably, Ruffini doesn't take it down because that would make him change

In 2008, he co-founded The Next Right, a forum for rising young leaders on the right shaping the future of the conservative movement.

to

He attempted to establish a forum for new ideas, but found that there were none.  This led him to embrace the teaparty movement as the last best hope for the Republican Party.

Look on the left.  TPM, Yglesias, Ezra Klein, ... , all host serious calm discussion.  Klein will tell you the various flavors of public option together with the CBO analysis of their relative merits.  You can't find anything like that on the right.

I think the site -- and the idea of a forward looking reality based problem solving Republican party -- failed because it could not face reality.  Successful Republican sites like RedState and MichelleMalkin thrive mainly on lies and anger.  But there's the paradox, you can't be thoughtful/creative and red faced angry at the same time. 

Glenn Beck is a growing threat to the Republican party.  The party needs a leader who will stand up to him.  Otherwise, as explained under the headline

Glenn Beck-Inspired Tea Party Candidates Step Up To Oust Veteran GOP Lawmakers

main stream Republican candidates will be attacked from the right and NY23 will be repeated across the country -- a far right candidate splitting the conservative vote and letting the Democrat win.  Understand this, even if something like half of Americans think of themselves as conservative, a small minority identifies with Beck and Limbaugh.  If voters are offered a choice between a Beck-like candidate and a sensible Democrat, they will pick the Democrat.

Politicians are not known for political courage, but some Republican needs to grab the mike and begin a conservative movement to discredit Beck and his partners.  McCarthy went so far that even his fellow Republicans turned away from him.  That needs to happen again today. 

Ruffini and Henke -- got any ideas?

Surveys show that at least 20% of physical scientists are Republicans.  That means there must be hundreds of climate scientists who support the Republican agenda -- "small government, low taxes, family values, etc." -- but believe the scientific community consensus on global warming.  Responsible Republican groups should have Republican science advisors who work within the scientific community and understand that scientists never could pull off a giant conspiracy. 

It would be great if some of the "idea men" behind this web site could think of a way to use these resources to bring some reality to the party.  Are they scared of Rush Limbaugh and Ironman (who probably couldn't finish a sprint tri)?  Do they think it's good for America to ignore what most scientists believe is an serious growing threat?  Are they putting the good of the party ahead of the good of the nation? 

This blog was founded to showcase Republican ideas.  Turns out there aren't any that help Republicans, at least not here.  The founders rarely post, and they haven't recruited any Republican idea men or women to fill the vacuum. 

The founders seem to have had dailykos as a model.  That's the liberal site that is open to anyone to start their personal blogs.  There are now hundreds arguing over all aspects of the liberal agenda.  It is open to anyone -- conservative or liberal.

What a different place this place is.  Fact based liberals are driving out outrage based conservatives.  It turns out that conservative ideas don't hold up very well in open blogs.  That's why RedState thrives -- liberals are quickly identified and blocked. 

Dear Jon Henke and Pattrick Ruffini: if you want to showcase Republican ideas, you should come up with regular content.  Try to make a post maybe once a day between you.  Given that you bopth are professional political operatives surrounded by political talk and information, this should not be a burden.  Otherwise, this blog will become largely liberal.  Do you really want to prove yet again that Republicans can't compete in the marketplace of ideas?  Do you want to join the Sarah Palin wing of the party where reporters are banned from reporting what was said? 

This blog is supposed to be about ideas that could revitalize the Republican party.  My suggestion: courage.  People are more likely to trust a leader who demonstrates that he/she can do the right thing even though it seems to give a short term disadvantage.  Bill Clinton probably would have lost in 1992 without his Sister Souljah moment.  McCain did as well has he did, picking up 20 points on the incumbant President of his party, largely because of his reputation as a maverick.  Had he "stayed the course" rather than tacking hard to the right he might have carried enough independents to beat his far less experienced rival.

Today's Republicans seem unable to call up this courage.  From a recent comment: "Did you notice, none of the 'saner' conservatives ever visit these threads to call out the loon on loose...?"  Where are the Republicans calling out the message of hate that is Glen Beck, or the supposedly Christian conservatives calling for prayer that Obama might die quickly? 

Challenge to readers of this site: which Republican or conservative would you call out, besides RINOs?

My day job is with top ten department in a good but not super elite university.  Every year we get thousands of applications from bright young people who want to earn graduate degrees in our department.  We accept about 10% of them, making us selective but not super elite.  There is a category of rejects I call "delusional".  These are the ones with mediocre records who are confident that if they are motivated enough they can overcome the challenge of a top graduate program.  Experience, however, shows that they will be even more mediocre in graduate school than they were in their easier undergraduate classes. 

Which brings up the quote from Sarah Palin:

I believe that I am [qualified to be president] because I have common sense, and I have, I believe, the values that are reflective of so many other American values. And I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism,...

This is delusional.  Palin clearly doesn't know much about the actual issues facing the country.  Maybe this OK when she was governor of Alsaka.  But she has not improved since she entered national politics.  "Values" alone do not make a President. We need somebody "elite".  In a country of 350 million people, surely there is someone with the right values who also knows that Russia will not impose sanctions on Iran just because we ask nicely, (or rudely in the case of Bush).  

The first year of Obama is looking like the first year of Clinton.  Now the issue is health care.  Then it was raising taxes.  Here’s how it was then.  Reagan tax cuts and spending increases had given us an unsustainable budget deficit that was smothering the economy.  Clinton knew that he had to raise taxes to avoid a meltdown.  Republicans then as now were unanimous in irresponsible opposition. 

Blue dog Democrats knew that their careers were on the line – that a vote for higher taxes would get them voted out in 1994.  Still, lots of them found the courage to do the right thing. They paid for this piece of patriotism with their careers, but America prospered.

Now we have expensive health care choking our economy.  Unsustainable employer health insurance premium growth is holding down wages and making American goods more expensive than European. 

Now Democrats are asking Blanche Lincoln to sacrifice her career for the good of the country.  Let’s hope she has the same courage that congressional Democrats had in 1993.

How does this impact Republicans?  In the short run, they could pick up a Senate seat.  In the long run, Americans will get another demonstration of what the party of Gingrich and Bush is like -- don't trust it to run the country. 

All people are subject to excesses. Bruckner symphonies are too long.  The groovey threads that cats and chicks wore in the sixties look silly in old movies.  The Democratic party went too far in the sixties and seventies.  It tolerated corruption in the name of reform.  It worked to raise taxes and over-spend on often ineffective social programs.  This led to the Reagan backlash.  Bill Clinton got elected by bringing discipline back to the Democratic Party.  He convinced them that Americans would not trust Democrats to run the country until the Democratic party had proven to Americans that it could handle the responsibility.  Now it’s Republicans who have gone too far.  All those Bush appointed “heckofajobbers” left an impression that will take some work to overcome.  Voters will remember the Katrina and Iraq disasters, and the economic meltdown at the end of the Bush years.  If Republicans want Americans to trust them, they will have to prove that they can put competence before ideology and think rationally about our policy choices.Sarah Palin is not helping.  I watched her on Hannity last night.  She said we should be firmer with Iran – we should put on economic sanctions already.  Hasn’t anyone told her that US sanctions without world cooperation would mean nothing to Iran?  She said we should pressure Russia to stop cooperating with Iran.  Doesn’t she know that Bush and Obama both did this?  -- OK, that’s as much as I could take.  She obviously doesn’t know enough to get anywhere near actual policy decisions.Palin is reinforcing all those negative stereotypes voters have about Republicans – incompetence, inability to look at all sides of policy decisions, ideology in place if real ideas.  Voters will have trouble trusting Republicans to run the country as long they see Republicans treating Palin as an asset rather than a liability.