First Principles

And What “Republicans for Reid” Can Teach the Tea Party Movement

Sometimes, you don’t always have the right general, and the other guy has a better one.  Sometimes that’s true even when you’re on the right side.  Lee chewed through plenty of Union generals, but that didn’t make the Confederate war to protect slavery any more just.  And Rommel was far more effective than the Benny Hill show that was the Allied effort in North Africa until Patton showed up.

And yet to have sided with McClellan would have been to side with a future of fractured and hostile regional powers on the American continent, at least one of which was ready to defend the horror of human trafficking to the death.  To have sided with Rommel, well…

It is the cause that we choose.  Only then can we pick a standard bearer, because they have to share our principles as a prerequisite.  Picking the guy who is antithetical to those principles just because he’s a better player is self defeating.

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The current policies from Washington will destroy the United States of America.  This is not hyperbole.  The spending alone will kill us as an economic power.  If I wanted to destroy someone as a functioning citizen, all I need to do is get a limitless credit card in their name – I could even let them keep everything I bought “for” them.  At some point, things which can’t go on forever – like endless spending – don’t.  The bill always comes due, and it doesn’t get cheaper to pay off down the road.

Washington spending has always been reckless, but the last two years have made anything that’s come before it simply mind boggling.  But what makes it even worse is that the things we’re running up on our credit card are themselves so destructive.

At least the Bush tax cuts, which the left now bizarrely blames for the debt accrued since January 2009, had the effect of diminishing future deficits and raising government revenue as they spurred economic growth.  But the new policies have stymied economic growth by adding tremendous expense and uncertainty to the calculations of anyone who would otherwise risk expanding or creating a business.  Increased federal taxes, regulation, and mandates mean less available revenue for state and local governments.

And beyond the numbers, there is the fundamental re-alignment of the United States government’s relationship with its citizens.  If Obamacare is upheld legally, then there is no single aspect of your life that can’t be regulated, down to what you eat for every single meal, because the case has been made that your health and anything that affects it is a matter of public concern.  This is not freedom in any sense I recognize, and the mischief available to generations of unaccountable bureaucrats in our future is quite simply bone chilling.

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There are three people who are each singularly responsible for the current state of things, and the inevitable and dark future that will come if the status quo course remains steady.  They are, of course, President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid.

Of these three, it is Reid who shares most of the blame.  Obama sat on the sidelines while the details of our current economic and “health” policies were being hammered out.  Nancy Pelosi is what she is, and although she is an incredibly effective legislative leader in terms of keeping her caucus together, the overwhelming number of Democrats in the House, the unavailability of procedural rules which empower the minority party to slow a reckless majority, and the illusion of a progressive mandate from the voters in 2008 all would have contributed to today’s policies to some degree or another being passed out of the house without her.

But it is Reid who pushed today’s policies into law.  He’s the one who was made the deals which defeated a filibuster.  He could have single handedly slowed spending and killed Obamacare, but he didn’t.  As the leader in the Senate, he of all people knew what was in the bills, changed things where necessary to get more votes when he needed them (because it’s not like he couldn’t change them back, which is exactly what he did in some cases where more conservative Democrats were conned), and knew how to get these things passed.

And now Reid’s only argument for re-electing him is alternatively “The economy isn’t MY fault,” and “Look at all the cool swag I brought home!”  By making the first, he is asking you to believe that he has no real power over the economy, which also necessarily requires you to believe he doesn’t have the power to fix it.  (The reality is that government can do a LOT to screw up the economy, but can really only “fix” it by staying out of its way.)

And the other argument really boils down to this.  “Look – I know I borrowed your credit card without really asking and ran it up to the max and beyond, and bought a lot of stuff for my friends in Nebraska and Louisiana and even on my staff, but I totally bought a couple of cool things for you, too!  How can you be mad?”  In any other context, that’s a handful of felony charges.  At the very least, it’s not a guy you decide to give your new credit card to again for another six years.

Besides, Nevada is near the bottom of the country when it comes to dollars out vs dollars received from the federal government – only 65 cents of every Nevadan’s federal tax dollars returns to this state, making us the second most “generous” donor state in the nation.  If your whole argument is how you’re so good at bringing home the bacon, you might want to, you know, actually bring home some bacon instead of constantly voting to send it to other states.

And anyone who says they vote “for people instead of party labels” in a legislative/Congressional race is quite simply fooling themselves.  A vote for ANY Democrat in the country is a vote for Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama.  A vote for ANY Democrat in a Nevada is a vote for the leftist billion-dollar-tax-increasing, overtly pay-to-play agenda which dominates the Democratic party in this state.  Whatever Harry Reid may personally think about abortion or gun rights, his votes will always result in more tax funded abortions and fewer Second Amendment rights.

There is much more.  But the cherry on the sundae for me was his “the war is lost” comment.  To this veteran, a comment like this in the middle of combat operations, which undoubtedly provided great comfort to some of the most horrible and evil people on earth while they continued to kill our soldiers and murder innocents, is absolutely unforgivable.

Ratifying Reid’s actions is nothing short of suicidal.  So why would anyone do it?

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You have to give Harry this – he’s effective.  He’s a much better politician than Angle, much better at collecting favors and cashing them in.  Even as a state politician in Nevada, Reid was a far more effective mover of his party’s agenda than was Angle when she was in the Assembly.

Reid is part of the in-crowd, and let’s all be honest – there’s something innate in all of us that wants to hang out with the popular kid.  I won’t say Harry Reid is “cool”, but I think I have to admit he’s somewhat less square than Sharron Angle.

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I personally know and like Sharron Angle, but she is not a perfect candidate.  (Of course, neither was I, so trust me when I say I don’t mean that in a snotty way – it’s just the truth.)  She has often – and correctly – been described as “gaffe prone.”  But what that means in practice is that she’s careless with the politician’s primary weapon – her public statements.  A candidate in a race this important MUST be able to clearly and effectively articulate how it is that conservative principles will help the vast majority of Nevadans and Americans.  She beat Harry Reid in their one debate, but only because as good as Reid is behind the scenes, he’s pretty horrible at the podium.  And it would have been even more decisive had she not had to defend past inconsistencies and poorly chosen words (the “spoiled” unemployed) in the past.

She has in the past been able to lead efforts to get legislation passed, such as her home schooling laws.  Unfortunately, this is not par for her career in Carson City.  Her “41 to Angle” votes, where she was so often the sole vote against a piece of legislation, means she has a hard time pulling other Republicans along with stands she feels are principled, which is troubling – Sharron Angle is not, nor ever has been, the only principled Conservative in Nevada politics.  At some point, “standing on principle” becomes an excuse for self-indulgence.  If you can’t get enough fellow legislators to help you pass policy, then your principles start to become useless in practice.  And the taped and leaked phone conversation she had with Scott Ashjian showed a remarkable lapse in judgment for someone who is no stranger to the political world – why would she trust a guy so obviously attempting to spoil the race in bad faith?

Sharron is not the cartoon the Reid campaign has attempted to make her out to be.  Why getting rid of a redundant bureaucracy which adds no value to the mission it purports to support (the Federal Dept. of Education) is “extreme” instead of “no duh” is beyond me.  And you’ll note that while the word “extreme” gets bandied about a great deal, it is never actually defined, at least not honestly or specifically.  But her carelessness during interviews and public speaking events has allowed these charges to stick with a segment of voters who have no love for Reid.  The cause of liberty cannot afford any soldier, no matter how loyal to the cause,  to leave weapons and ammunition lying around for the enemy to pick up and use against them.  Sharron MUST recognize these weaknesses and work to correct them.  If she wins, and I hope she does with every fiber of my being, she will need to improve her political skills in order to turn the principles we largely share in to policy.

This is what I mean by the “better general.”  Harry Reid is both a more skilled politician and legislator.  But he’s marshaled those skills against the interests of Nevada and the country.  Voting for skill at achieving certain goals without looking at what those goals actually are as a voter is a dereliction of any voter’s duty.

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So back to the question – why would anyone, especially anyone who calls themselves a Republican, vote for Harry Reid?  And what lesson can Republicans everywhere (particular tea party types) learn from these “Republicans for Reid”?

Fortunately, we don’t have to guess.  Senator Bill Raggio did us all a great service by crafting his long written statement announcing he would be voting for Harry Reid.  (It was hardly an endorsement.)  Whatever anyone thinks of Raggio, it cannot be denied that he’s also a very skilled politician, and understands how to pull the levers of power in state politics.  So his reasoning in choosing to vote for Reid over Angle, while wrong-headed in my view, bears careful study.

First, while there are some even self described moderate Republicans who scoff at using the “S” word to describe the current Democratic government in Washington, Bill Raggio is not one of them.  He correctly acknowledges that the Obama Administration’s policies (which are, of course, Harry Reid’s policies) are moving the country toward socialism, and are destructive towards the country.  He says he opposes those policies, and I believe him.  He actively supported Sue Lowden, who spent plenty of time at tea party rallies and didn’t shy away from strong conservative rhetoric, and who is actively campaigning for Sharron Angle now (I got one of her E-mails this morning).  So why, if he believes this, would he vote for those policies he thinks are so destructive?  It’s not like his “reluctant” vote counts any less than an enthusiastic one from a committed liberal Democrat.

The answer, of course, is that it’s personal.  That’s why Raggio spent most of his statement talking about how he didn’t like Sharron Angle’s conduct during her primary challenge of him two years ago, and how she never called him after she lost.  And I have to admit, he has a point.

I think it’s very, very good to have incumbents challenged in primary elections.  I wish it would happen more.  It’s good for the incumbent, and it’s good for the party.  It forces them to get back out and face the voters periodically, reminding them of who they work for.  It forces them to discuss not just the principles the party largely shares, but to discuss the pros and cons of various approaches to advancing those principles.  In 2008, Sharron Angle forced Raggio into a promise not to raise taxes, because he couldn’t escape the logic of the voters – that huge tax increases during recessions make things worse, not better.  (Two years of hindsight prove Sharron right on that, of course.)  And it acts as a forge, making the ultimate victor stronger.  Brian Sandoval’s primary fight hasn’t hurt him against Rory Reid, who didn’t have one.  And the most bitter presidential primary battle of 2008 was on the blue side of the fight – it only helped Obama become a better general election candidate.  Battle tested veterans generally make better warriors.

But once the primary is over, you shake hands, realize you’re on the same team, and move forward together to defeat the opposing party, whose principles you presumably find fundamentally at odds with your own.  That goes for the winner and the loser.  Wipe the word “RINO” from your vocabulary between June and November, because in the general election, the “R” behind their name matters, and your primary opponent will be manifestly better than his opponent.  If you can’t do that, you’re part of the problem – no party, especially in the minority, can successfully move an agenda forward or stop one they oppose without caucus unity.  For any GOP candidate, sore loserism (and yes, sore-winnerism, too), undermines that cohesion and makes it more likely liberal policies get pushed forward.  That doesn’t mean unsuccessful primary battles aren’t sometimes worth it – Reagan himself was right to challenge Ford in 1976.  But Reagan not only conceded to his fellow Republican, he gave one of the finest speeches of his life to support him once Ford secured the nomination.

Refusing to call Raggio after his primary victory to conceed and congratulate him was not only needlessly rude, it was actively destructive.  A concession – and even an offer of congratulations – doesn’t have to be an endorsement of everything you didn’t like about your opponent in the first place.  It’s just good manners.  And more, it’s how serious adults who disagree about method but agree on mission behave.  It’s part of being an effective politician, and honestly, why play this game if you don’t intend to be effective?

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I sincerely respect Senator Raggio’s long and storied career, and I would have voted for him over Angle in that primary if that would have been my Senate district because of similar concerns to his own over effectiveness.  I had concerns about Sharron in this year’s primary for the same reasons.  As deeply disappointed as I was that he voted to override the Governor’s veto and help push through Nevada’s largest tax increase in history, I also believe that it would have gone through over Angle’s objection, and without the 2 year sunset Raggio was able to force into the tax package.

I think Senator Raggio is wrong to not vote for Sharron Angle, if he’s serious about the “Jeffersonian principles” he claims to advocate.  I also think that he should be careful about throwing “Reagan’s 11th Commandment” stones while endorsing the leader of the opposition party controlled Congress, which is as opposite as anything Reagan has stood for since the New Deal.  (Raggio hasn’t exactly been a keen observer of that rule in the past when he felt like other Republicans were getting a little uppity and a little too conservative.)  At worst, Sharron Angle could be ineffective – on the other hand, there is a 100% chance that Harry Reid has been and will continue to be suicidally destructive.  But while I can’t wrap my head around his ultimate conclusion, I at least sympathize with his consternation.

The takeaway?  Refusing to pick up the phone and make a congratulatory phone call to a primary opponent in a local race has now made the struggle for liberty nation wide just a little harder to fight.  It’s a mistake I hope no Republican ever repeats.

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One of the interesting thing about Bill Raggio’s statement is the complaint over Sharron Angle’s “slamming and disavowing the Republican Party saying it had ‘lost its standards and principles.’”  I don’t know how anyone could say the GOP in the last several years HASN’T lost it’s way.  Over the past several years, when they were in power, the national GOP actually spearheaded huge increases in spending, debt, and the size and scope of the Federal Government’s role in our daily lives.  In Nevada, Republicans were responsible for a per capita spending increase of over 31% just since 2005, and the two largest tax increases in state history in the same period of time.  There is nothing about any of this which has anything whatsoever to do with “principles of free enterprise, low taxes, limited government and fiscal responsibility” which Raggio correctly notes the GOP is supposed to represent.  Of course the GOP lost its way.  And people like Angle, far from “disavowing” the party, are working from within it to make it better.  This is a good thing.

But working within the party also means that if you think other Republicans have lost their way, you ought to be leading them back to the right path, not just snarking at them or calling them names.  Leadership matters.  We won’t save ourselves as a nation just because we have the right ideas – we need to get them implemented, and that takes a concerted, party-wide effort.  If the Tea Party movement is to be successful in taking the helm of the GOP and steering us off the rocks, any candidate claiming the mantle of that movement has a sacred duty to learn and hone the skills necessary to succeeding in the world of politics.  Everyone claims to love candidates who “aren’t career politicians,” but those same voters won’t cast their vote for someone without the skill to articulate their principles in any forum or who is unable to build and lead coalitions within a legislative body which will turn those principles into policy.  Before asking to lead the fight, you must acquire the skills to win.  Never get cocky, and never forget that just because you’ve got the right principles, you aren’t immune from hubris, ego, inexperience, infighting, stupidity, or anything else in the long list of self destructive human frailties which have sabotaged human progress since our species first walked the Earth.

A successful conservative movement depends utterly on accurate self-awareness.  Listening to people like Bill Raggio who have thrown in with the other side can teach us an enormous amount about how to keep the tent big and build on the momentum the tea parties have created.

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At the end of the day, all elections are choices between two imperfect people.  I’ve never voted for a perfect candidate in my life, and the only time I’ve ever voted for someone I completely agreed with was when I voted for myself in June’s primary.  Sharron Angle is an imperfect candidate I’m going to be very happy to cast my vote for.  Because once you compare the two choices, there really isn’t any choice at all.

Even if you assume candidate Sharron Angle is not the real one, but rather the cartoon drawn by Reid and Co., it is difficult to see how she will make life for me or my family or my neighbors any worse.  Under Harry Reid’s policies, Social Security will phase itself out by going completely broke – ditto veteran’s benefits, Medicare, and pretty much everything else.  So even if you believe that Angle will try to get rid of those programs, and could in any known universe actually succeed, at worst you’ve achieved nothing worse than the status quo.  Talk about a low risk vote!  The one thing you can be absolutely certain of is that Angle won’t vote to increase the debt a single dime.

Sharron Angle’s social conservatism worries some liberals, because they don’t think the government should be in the bedroom.  Fair enough – I agree with that.  But coming from liberals who supported Obamacare, it’s hard to take this concern seriously.  Harry Reid has helped ensure that every molecule of food entering your body, every minute you spend at the gym (or don’t) is worthy of bureaucratic regulation and control.  Keep your laws off my body indeed…  Sharron Angle will no more be able to outlaw abortion than George Bush could have.  But you can be sure she will vote against continued attempts from the federal government to regulate the most mundane aspects of our everyday lives.

Harry Reid thinks he can create jobs for Nevada in a bad economy.  But in the time he’s been the Majority Leader, Nevada’ unemployment has very nearly quadrupled, and show no sign of improvement.  Even if you think the federal government is able to control the economy as finely as Reid needs you to believe, he’s utterly failed at the task.  Sharron, on the other hand, will vote against new mandates, costs, and most importantly, the uncertainty that prevents investors and entrepreneurs from hiring people and expanding their businesses.

I suspect that Sharron’s views on foreign policy tend more towards isolationism than mine.  But you can take it to the bank that she will never, ever announce to those attempting to kill our troops in the middle of a combat zone that the US mission is hopeless, this providing those enemies with aid and comfort.

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In the end, I always consider Ronald Reagan’s formulation that there is no right or left, but only up or down.  Some people we vote for will attempt to expand liberty, others will attempt to constrict it.  I am a Republican because the cause of liberty to me is more important than any other, and I hope every other self identified Republican feels the same.  The cause of liberty to me trumps concerns I have about almost any GOP candidate relative to their Democratic counterpart.  Any doubt I might have is removed altogether when I consider the destructive debt and pernicious control over each one of us that this particular Democrat has foisted upon us.   Sharron Angle is an imperfect warrior fighting for liberty, which I’ll take every time over an ideal politician working against it.

There’s really no other choice when you think about it.  I hope you’ll join me in voting for Sharron Angle.