The House of David

"all your cities lie in dust"

Monday, November 09, 2009

Pro-democracy blogs on the Right... well... sorta


The Right - like the Left - has two attitudes toward democracy, and one can find bloggers who hold to either view.

I go to Moldbug for a Right-wing anti-democratic view and to Ace for a Right-wing democratic view. Moldbug isn't interested in working with the system, except insofar as the judo master works with his enemy's folly; he endorses the politicians who are mostly likely to further the ends of this system, which last year meant Obama. Ace by contrast has not abandoned democracy. Ace sees his mission as rallying libertarians and Conservatives together to elect pro-liberty, pro-tradition people into office.

I believe that blogs should state what they are about. When That Other Green-Themed Blog became an anti-Conservative blog, its proprietor should have announced that.

If you are running a blog based on a standpoint, then you have a loyalty to that standpoint. Since Ace is pro-democracy, Ace can't put up with comments advocating anti-democratic means.

The "maximalists" whom Ace frequently posts against, include a sizable subset who support armed resistance to Obama's regime. I am in sympathy with many of these, but Ace's comments are nonetheless not the place to air all that. "Go get your own blog", as a green sage once put it (before he decided he wanted to shut down those blogs too).

With that in mind, I'm at a loss to understand why Ace thinks it's good politics to vote present on an amendment which supports the pro-life position. If the RNC wants to "vote present", why not do that on all this Congress's business? The logical conclusion to this line of argument, for Republicans, should be to stay at home and let the Democrats run the candy store. It's a defensible Moldbug argument, and I might agree with it too - but it's anti-democratic.

Very strange, this. (Not that there is anything wrong with it.)

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posted by Zimri on 21:05 | link |

Sunday, November 08, 2009

Bad dog!


Clearly I was wrong about Joseph Cão. He's not a vulnerable Republican trolling for RNC support; he's an unprincipled sellout.

UPDATE 11/12: If proof be needed, this cur has "said he voted for the legislation only after seeing that Democrats had the 218 votes needed for passage".

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posted by Zimri on 10:00 | link |

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Joseph Cao needs our help


Another one of the moderates on the list: Joseph Cao (R, LA). He's the guy who beat the corrupt Jefferson last year - he didn't get the majority of the black vote, but enough blacks didn't vote against him that the rest of the district boosted him over.

I hold Cao to a different standard than I hold the despicable Kirk. Cao is genuinely vulnerable, in a district that is going away, and of an ethnicity (Vietnamese) which is not well represented in his own district (or any other). So when I hear the media courting Cao as another "moderate", I view Cao's response more as a cry for help than as a Kirk / Snowe bid for power.

When I come into contact with Louisianans, or read about the place, it usually involves something ugly like ruling against miscegenation. As a result I suspect that Louisianans put Cao alongside Jindal and slap the label "diversity quota" on that box. This frees them to ignore the weaker Cao over the prominent Jindal. This attitude is depressingly common. I expressed a "concern-troll", you might call it, over at Ace's; one "tmi3rd" helped me gain some perspective on the case. But he's one good guy in a state with a lot of bad guys.

It will be difficult to overcome some of the attitudes I've seen in that state. I think that Cao knows it, and that Cao is telling his Party not to take him for granted. He wants to be seen as someone who listens to his constituents (even if they're wrong). In short, he wants a career as a Louisiana Republican. I think he can help the Republicans, and the nation, in that capacity.

I hope that non-bigoted Louisianan conservatives are involved in their local precincts, or can at least write to someone, who can then get in contact with Cao and help him build a deeper foundation as a Louisiana conservative.

UPDATE 11/12: Okay, forget him.

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posted by Zimri on 17:10 | link |

Rep. Mark Kirk's dereliction of duty


The so-called "Cap And Trade" bill which passed the house in June was a mistake. It was a job-killer as written (where it was even written), but that doesn't even matter so much. Worse than that, it had gaps where there wasn't even any text.

It's theoretically Constitutional to send a bill with a title and a demand to fill-in-later, to the Senate; but it shames the House to do it, and thereby it shames the entire government and so the nation. Some actions are so stupid that they shouldn't even be illegal. Some politicians deserve Darwin Awards.

(LGF's endorsement of this bill was one of the "WTF Moments" which pushed me out of that blog. I was barely able to spin the Von Brunn shooting as cultural-rightist. Not so here.)

Mark Kirk deserves his Darwin as much as any other.

Kirk was one of eight "Republican" rodents who pushed this swiss-cheese bill through the House. So when I see him (with fellow "capntr8or" Mike Castle) mulling healthcare nationalisation, I expect he's pulling an Olympia Snowe. He gets in payment for his perfidy: fawning news stories, national recognition, a primary endorsement from the RNC, and grovelling from other Republicans in office and on campaign.

Kirk is running for the Senate next. I think his aim is to establish himself now as the "electable" guy; and once in the Senate, to be the next "moderate" swing-voter who holds the real power and who gets the bribes and the accolades.

Illinois Republicans need to bounce Kirk from consideration now before he builds up a machine.

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posted by Zimri on 17:08 | link |

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Post-mortem on NY-23


Here's what Drew at AoSHQ had to say about NY-23: "the 'roof top highway' and year round navigation of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Hoffman and his surrogates really didn't address that. It may rankle the independent streak in this area."

Sometimes "local issues" boil down to "pork", a cutesy way of describing "federal-scale larceny". When voters pull that card, and my preferred candidate loses, I blame the voters.

I can't blame the voters here. Maintaining the St. Lawrence is inherently a federal issue. It involves dealing with Quebec, and with Canada in general. It also involves Pennsylvania and other states upstream who send their own traffic past NY-23. Hoffman should have been up to speed on all that.

If Hoffman wasn't the most-informed candidate, then it should have been up to his aides to help him. Unfortunately finding decent help for non-executive candidates, like prospective Representatives, is supposed to be the job of the Republican Party which, in this case, invested in that left-wing fraud "Scuzzy" Scozzafava. The RNC has a problem understanding outlying provinces.

And Palin and Thompson, and Beck, and (granted that I don't like him) Limbaugh all should learn a few things about how to endorse candidates. Hoffman's allies did great at destroying Scozzafava, but as they were doing that they forgot to build up Hoffman. Hoffman needed help also to tailor his message to the area. They didn't give that help; they instead made Hoffman look like an imposed outsider.

As for Owens: what did he even do in this campaign? It seems to me like he just sat back and watched the Republicans and Conservatives get stupid. Owens ended up, by comparison, looking like the safe sensible moderate.

As a (very?) minor postscript: we have the Man Who Would Be Kingmaker; the Markos Moulitsas to Hoffman's Ned Lamont - Robert Stacy McCain. Not, in the end, as helpful to Conservative candidates as some bloggers imagine.

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posted by Zimri on 22:34 | link |

Newt Gingrich, it is time to leave


This isn't much of a pro-Newt blog. I believe the only real comment I've made of him here was "I can ignore Gingrich", since he is "a bomb-throwing loudmouth who doesn't speak for anyone but himself".

I was a Newt fan in 1994-5, but then... I grew up.

I've always heard about how "smart" Gingrich is. From what I've seen, this involves sponsoring "enterprise zones", school vouchers, free computers, Greeeeen Jorrrrbs and the rest of that rot. Time was when I agreed with this Jack Kemp ethos, the "neocon" platform, Conservative Means To Liberal Ends. With the exception of vouchers, which is DOA wherever public-sector unions are legal, no-one serious thinks anymore that this pile of tweaks and wonkery will do squat for the urban poor. Kemp-style wonkery, I've found, is more about making Republicans look like they are Trying and that they Care. It's all about playing to the Stuff White People Like set. This is how Jack Kemp himself ended up on the Bob Dole ticket in 1996; we all saw how well that went.

While we're on the topic of Gingrich's sooper geniosity, Michael Moore (yes, Michael Moore) managed to pwn him on TV Nation: about all the pork / federal spending Gingrich was bringing back to his district. If you let yourself be Alinskyed by Michael Moore then, for all I am concerned, you don't deserve a spot on any media outpost this side of FailBlog.

Newt Gingrich is a man of no ideas who wants to be treated as a thinker. He has tarried too long for the good he does. For the love of God, go!

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posted by Zimri on 18:09 | link |

Election watch


I voted here in Houston at 9AM-ish. The Houston Press is having a laugh at how uninspiring this race was. I can attest to a lack of long lines and general interest.

I'll be watching V at 8 PM EST, as aforementioned, but I hope that the Republicans (and, in NY-23, Conservatives) in the East will take time to ensure that the Democrats don't CHEAT so bad this time around. Put the show on TiVo if you have to - be around to place calls and make a general stink if there is something going wrong. For those who aren't in the thick of things, you may as well watch V and chill out for an hour...

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posted by Zimri on 17:47 | link |

The disastrous centralism of the Republican National Committee


Conservatism is regional and I think that the RNC has been inept in all regions.

I live in Texas, and here the RNC doesn't have much sway. We may or may not have more libertarians and social-conservatives down here than they have up north, but our culture (at least among whites and the more rooted hispanics) is more friendly to these strains of conservatism. The conservative candidates are already here. The RNC here hasn't got to do much more than give them money.

From what I've seen of the Northeast (and the West Coast), libertarians and social-conservatives lack such a cultural voice. As a result, these guys don't win downticket races in their districts, and when it comes time to pick upticket candidates the Republican Party lacks a slate of experienced people. The RNC has more influence up North than it wields down here in Texas. The RNC often has to choose the candidates.

The Republicans' problem here in the South is that we have people like Huckabee, and I'd argue Perry and Jindal, who have identified anti-intellectualism as a social-conservative value. Huckabee is pretty open about ignoring fiscal conservatism as long as he can float (Protestant) crosses through his advertisements. Perry likes to play loose with taxpayer money too. You'll forgive me if I don't trust Jindal the Exorcist after watching these two. The RNC's problem here is in not doing enough to slap down their appeals to obscurantism. They're letting Jindal's weirdness taint RNC candidates up north.

In the northeast, the RNC figures that no form of overt conservatism will win - so they pick "Not A Democrat" to run against "Incumbent D".

The RNC has proven that it does more harm than good to conservatives up north, and down south it doesn't do much of anything. Much of this can be put down to misunderstanding how local races work and how they affect non-Republican perceptions elsewhere. This is a known problem with central committees. The RNC may even do better not picking candidates in the first place.

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posted by Zimri on 17:40 | link |

Monday, November 02, 2009

Endorsements (for Texas and Houston)


I'm in Houston, which is not one of the exciting places like NY-23 or Virginia or New Jersey. I haven't been paying much attention. I was tempted not to vote at all.

But I'm a Right-leaning secularist, and I found another blog with similar views, so I'll outsource my endorsements to Janus for tomorrow's election.

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posted by Zimri on 16:14 | link |

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Republicans as a third-party


Given the three-person races in New Jersey and New York district 23, I am now hearing excitable Conservatives describe the Republicans as being the "third party" in 1860. I do not think it fits.

This is based on a memory of early nineteenth-century politics: the pro-Congress Whig Party, versus the strong-executive Democrat Presidencies of Jackson and Polk. The memory is accurate enough... up to the Compromise of 1850.

They're forgetting that the Whigs were dead by the mid 1850s. Even looking at the 1856 map shows that the Republicans already existed, already had a base of support, and were already the effective second party as of Election Day that year.

By 1860 the Republicans had an even more consistent and electable platform than they had in 1856. No-one else had their degree of organisation, will to power, and popularity. So they were not a "third party".

What happened in 1860 is that it was the turn of other "third parties" to shatter the Democrat coalition. There was a North Democrat, a South Democrat, and a Constitutional Union.

So, were the Republicans ever a third party? Maybe in 1855. There were Congressional races up to then wherein the former Whigs played around with, for instance, the American Party. But most of this was shaken out of the system by 1856. And it wasn't caused by a challenge to the Whigs; the Whigs had already collapsed.

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posted by Zimri on 16:18 | link |

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