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Haven't done one of these in awhile.  Can't help myself, I'm flush with victory.  Go Longhorns!

In California, they can only make the Emerald Bowl.  I've never even heard of that one.

In Texas, we just won the Fiesta Bowl (even if the BCS is made up of morons).

Hook 'em Horns!!!

Jon is right. The addition of some $300 billion in temporary tax cuts to the massive $775 billion Obama stimulus is a risk politically and Bushonomics (e.g. tax-cut-and-spend) on steroids policywise.

What's the main reason Republicans are dispirited right now? Because the Republican Party no longer represented less spending and limited government. What do we propose to do to fix it? Why... double down on this strategy by throwing in with the biggest spending bill in U.S. history if does enough tax cutting! As Jon infers, if the GOP accepts massive stimulus spending of any kind, it will sever the GOP from its base for years, and keep Republicans from rallying around a unifying limited government message in 2010. Instead of a peaceful 1994-style revolution, this will likely trigger a bloody Goldwater-style takeover of the GOP from the outside which may take 2 or 3 presidential cycles to fully play out. Ugly, but it may turn out, necessary.

There is broad consensus in the country right now that we need to "do something" about the economy. The economy will probably recover on its own by early 2010, but we must nonetheless "do something." Republicans should accept this fact and move on.

But there are different ways to "do something." A stimulus primarily composed of permanent tax cuts is a perfectly legitimate and defensive version of "doing something" both from a policy and public opinion perspective -- one that we can go to the country with and not appear like Hooverites or know-nothings. For one thing, past (successful) stimuli have been composed primarily of tax relief. Obama's own economist says the economic multiplier effect from tax relief is greater than than the general consensus of the multiplier from spending (allowing the GOP to paint larding up the bill with spending as primarily ideologically -- not economically -- driven). The American people are not economists, and likely have no inherent preference between tax cuts and spending increases so long as the plan is of a certain magnitude. So, let's educate them.

Right now, I yearn for the legislative acumen -- and in this case, the spine -- of Bob Dole, who rallied even John Chafee -- Lincoln's father -- to oppose the 1993 Clinton stimulus. With the GOP officially reaching rock bottom today, the Republican leadership in Congress has to recognize that number one political priority is not to give voters warm and fuzzies by angling into photo ops with Obama. Yes, he's popular, but his popularity can only redound to the benefit of one party, and that's not Republicans. For a cautionary tale on what happens when a party tries this strategy, see the 2002 midterm elections.

The GOP's number one priority politically is to set into motion a series of events that will make Obama look more ineffective, partisan, and unpopular than he is today. Playing hard-to-get on the stimulus is one way to do it. And we need to set the stage for a unified and effective Republican opposition that will actually fight from top to bottom. Even if Democrats did some truly stupid things these last two years, it was always impossible to rally grassroots Republicans in opposition because the party had zero credibility. Closing that credibility gap -- not beating Obama in popularity contest right now -- must be job one in order to rebuild the GOP. Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole (!) did it, and Boehner and McConnell must do the same. Not neutering our principles in search of short-term headlines would be a good start. 

Crossposted at Right Minds

The Berlin Wall came down in 1989. The USSR broke up in 1991. The Cold War has been over for seventeen years. The US military no longer sees Russia as its chief enemy; the concept of the Second World (the Soviet bloc) is obsolete, and the old diplomacy is dead. The Cold War is over for everyone—except the Democrat and Republican parties.

Both parties foreign policies were forged in the heat of the Cold War, and both made their differing foreign policies the centerpieces of their respective platforms. Then the Cold War ended. But both parties liked their platforms the way there were, and didn’t see any need to change. So now both parties feature foreign policy philosophies that are outdated and a bit ridiculous.

The Right was always implacably opposed to Communism, and recognized it as a existential threat to Liberalism (capital L, of course; the Liberalism of the Enlightenment). They favored an aggressive treatment in an attempt to stamp out Communism wherever it was found; hence an aggressive foreign policy against any nation that looked likely to turn Communist.

When the Cold War ended, conservatives still felt hawkish but didn’t know whom to be hawkish towards. And they started seeing any foreign adversary of America, no matter how insignificant, as a deadly threat to the American way of life.

This is how Saddam Hussein, who in retrospect seems a relatively harmless (at least to us) tyrant, became a frightening menace to America, and why conservatives seek to paint Islamic extremists as a truly existential threat to the West. In reality, Islam is no match for the West, even if it gave them a free hand—Osama bin Laden is the only Islamic leader to have actually done any significant damage, and suicide bombings are simply not an effective way of gaining power. Neither are protests—Europe might give in for a while—but once Muslims start demanding things Europeans want for themselves, suddenly their protests won’t be as effective. It’s almost impossible to see a plausible way that Islam could topple Western culture, and impossible to imagine it defeating the United States.

The Right is probably guilty of creating a paper tiger of Islamic fundamentalism. The Left is guilty of doing its best to make that paper tiger real.

During the Cold War, the Left saw Communism as something of a kindred ideology; far too extreme, but still something that could be reasoned with. That is one reason the Left opposed Vietnam—not so much because it was an unnecessary and strategically stupid war poorly handled (though that was a reason, and perhaps a good one), but because any war against Communism was ipso facto a bad idea. It would be unfair to say that liberals wanted the Communists to win—but they didn’t much want them to lose either.

And when the Cold War ended, they brought that same pacifistic fervor to the post-War world. For liberals, there were very few good reasons to fight a war, and advancing American foreign policy wasn’t one of them (on most occasions). They viewed every foreign conflict with deep suspicion, even though the U.S. was usually (it may even be safe to say always) fighting dangerous dictators who were, apart from any threat they may have presented to the U.S., had it coming.

So now the Left tries to excuse any crimes committed by radical Muslims, and opposes harsh confrontations with Islamic nations. Liberalism (small l) and radical Islam have nothing in common, leaving liberals defending an ideology that they can’t rationally defend. Most of the Left’s sympathy for radical Islam, I suggest, is borne out of an instinctive sympathy for those on the receiving end of American power.  

Podcast Show Notes

Bill Richardson steps down as Commerce Secretary-designate amid a brewing scandal in New Mexico (Hat Tip: The Corner.), the Obama camp tries to cover their rear (Hat Tip: Hot Air.), and are there more scandals on the way? 

Seven perils of big stimulus. (Hat Tip: Club for Growth.)

Friendly fire: Anti-Prop. 8 vandals attack pro-Homosexual Catholic Parish.  Priest's response: you got the wrong church. (Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin.)

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It feels like the only thing I get to read from a lot of conservative blogs since Obama's election is how the conservative movement is in shambles, how the Republican Party has lost its way, etc. I was in the boat for a few days, and while there is some regrouping that needs to be done, I think those on the right who are in dire straits - and those on the left who are rubbing their hands together - need to take a step back a bit. Things aren't so bad, and this is why:

1) Conservatism Generally Isn't Trendy: I say "generally" because Ronald Reagan largely bucked this trend. Even then, the trendiness of Reagan had as much to do with how ineffectual Carter was as the reality of Reagan as one of the great communicators. But, generally speaking, conservatism isn't trendy. It's an ideas-based, values-based ideology, and one that resonates best when sticking to its principles. I'll come back to that point, but contrast it with the Obama campaign that generated, purposefully or not, a cult of personality complete with art and songs and what have you. No matter how good your ideas are, you're going to have a lot of trouble beating a fad, and that's the type of buzzsaw that the Republican Party and the conservative movement ran into this year. After all, for comparison, Kid A came out in 2000, but N'Sync's No Strings Attached is still the highest selling debut week in history from that same year - sometimes the superior doesn't always resonate.

2) Barack Obama Can't Run Every Year: I have to highlight this following the Georgia run-off and the results of the Minnesota Senate race - with Barack Obama on the ballot, Democrats will do better as a result. In Georgia, Saxby Chambliss couldn't pull a majority. When Obama's not there to boost turnout? A massive swing. On the same token, in Minnesota, Franken never polled as well as Obama in Minnsesota, it's difficult to imagine that he'd come close to Coleman if there wasn't something else to boost Democratic turnout. The true test of this will be in 2010, of course - granted, one can't expect the trend of the White House party in power to be bucked again like it was in 2002 with Bush, but the likelihood of Democrats getting an extra 4-6% of downticket support is unlikely in 2010. 2012 might be a different story altogether, but it's obviously too soon to see how the left will ultimately react to an Obama Presidency.

3) We're Still Center-Right as a Nation: As much as I'd like to say that Obama's waffling on Iraq and taxes is evidence of this, we have more significant evidence than that: even with Obama's apparent mandate, the electorate doesn't agree with his original positions on issues such as drilling or the death penalty, not even touching moral issues. The reality is that the conservative or even center point of view is more like to win out today, and the demographics are trending toward that as well - young people overwhelmingly want to be able to opt out of Social Security, and, to use a Presidential poll, the investor class (defined as folks who have more than $5000 invested in stocks) trend conservative/Republican. A majority of Americans own stock today, and if you invest, you're more likely to vote conservative/Republican. We elected a hardline liberal into the White House this year, and elected some hardline liberals into the House and Senate. This isn't evidence of a shifting electorate as much as what appears to be a unique circumstance.

4) Conservatives Can Win as Conservatives, Not as Centrists: We saw this happen a bit during the special elections between 2006 and 2008 - squishy, centrist (if not left-leaning) Republicans against Blue Dog Democrats, Republicans are going to fail. The plus side to the losses in 2006 by the Republicans was the way many of the Republicans who lost were ones Republicans could afford to lose in the long term. While it's hard to say whether any conservative could have won against Obama in the Fall 2008 political climate, running a guy who's spent most of his Senate career annoying conservatives may not have been the brightest move.

This isn't to say there aren't some marketing issues to be addressed, or that the Democrats haven't possibly made some strides, but I do think things are better than they look.

Liberal  Simsbury First Selectwoman (i.e.Mayor) Mary M. Glassman had a startling revelation today over Connecticut's economic crisis. Doing a state capitol presser today, she revealed

 “We can’t come up here and ask the state for more money and we can’t go back to our communities and ask our taxpayers for more money.”

Funny how she was more adamant about tax and spend policies when she ran for Lt. Governor in 2006, .supporting the "millionaire's tax"

Government should live within its means. What a novel concept. Of course, in Connecticut Democrats sound positively disgusted that the economy and those cranky voters have put an end to the usual ping-pong of raising state taxes one year, local taxes the next.  

The Democrats "own" government now. Let's see how they pay for and/or break their promises.

I have a little different mind on the stimulus than Jon Henke. I don't think Obama is planning for people to start blaming his spending spree for causing all the problems that will accompany it. Here's what he's trying to do:

--Obama doesn't really seem to care about the deficit, so why not lavish huge tax cuts on top of his stimulus pie? If the Republicans oppose it they can be painted as mean-spirited and blindingly partisan in compared to the magnaminous Obama.

--If the stimulus somehow works (or the economy recovers anyway) Obama will get the credit for coming up with the entire idea, not the Republicans.

--If it doesn't work, it won't be interpreted as a failure of Keynesian economics. Instead the Obama administration will blame those dastardly Republicans for "watering down" whatever he originally opposed (and such watering down on the spending side is almost assured to occur). We will be told the only way to save the economy is to invest even more money. So the Dems will pass another huge stimulus. By the time the second stimulus takes full effect we'll probably already be out of the recession anyway, and thus Obama will be the hero again.

--The above will be encouraged by the fact that if the stimulus is full-blown bipartisan in nature, the public will take it to mean that the Republican party also believes massive state spending is needed to fix the economy. The question be framed as do we spend more or less? Hmmmmm.....

--The stimulus will advance the union cause and create millions of voters who at least think they owe their jobs to King Barack.

--With regards to the tax hikes, I don't think he'll do it. Oh, he'll surely loot the rich its just that he'd actually probably prefer the massive deficits to raising middle class taxes.

Barack Obama appears to be making significant overtures to cultivate Republican support for his fiscal stimulus plan with massive tax cuts (albeit short-term tax shifts rather than structural changes or actual cuts).  The Leftroots (and Paul Krugman) are fairly upset about this.  Kevin Drum says this attempt to win bipartisan support (rather than just the few Republican votes he absolutely needs to secure passage) is a bad idea, because Obama is making concessions he doesn't have to make and diluting Democratic policy.

The netroots is understandably anxious to enact all of their favorite policies - they earned political capital in the campaign and they intend to spend it, they'll argue without a trace of irony - but that's what President Clinton did in 93-94, right before he learned the difference between stated preference (nice things are nice!) and revealed preference (wait, you want to do what to me?).  The Democrats tried to run out of the gate and discovered too late that they'd left a lot of people behind.  In 1994, those people voted.

Obama's strategy is a lot more sophisticated than that.

Here's the calculation on fiscal stimulus: If Obama gets his way, he's looking at massive, trillion dollars deficits, and much more government intervention in the economy.  The public may tolerate this due to fears about economic crisis, but if it works out well and the US gets a relatively soft landing from the recession, then the costs will still be visible (deficit, intervention), but the benefits will be intangible (the crisis that didn't come). 

What's more, the Democrats have only one possible solution to the massive deficits coming down the pike: increase taxes.  (Object lesson: "We can spend more of your money" is the Democrats solution to everything)

If Obama passes the perfect progressive stimulus bill without much Republican help, he owns the spending, the deficits, the tax hikes and all of the pain that comes with it.  Republicans will be happy to run against those problems in 2010 and 2012.

But if Obama buys significant Republican support for his bill, Republicans will own the deficits, tax hikes and intervention, as well.  The stimulus bill will be for Republicans what the Iraq war was for Democrats - a policy they first supported, then regretted, then tripped over themselves to explain.  The "they were for it before they were against it" ads would be inevitable and devastating.

Republicans are in a difficult situation here. 

• If they oppose the bill and it fails, they will be blamed (fairly or not) for any economic problems.
• If they support the bill and it passes, they will share the blame for the enormous costs it will entail.
• If they oppose the bill and it passes, the lack of policy leverage would leave the bill much worse than if they had forced potentially valuable compromises (e.g., sunset provisions and exit strategies).

Obama doesn't want bipartisan support, so much as he wants political immunization.  In this case, unity and bipartisanship = lashing the Republicans to the mast of Government.

There aren't many good solutions here, but one thing seems likely: as with the Democrats and the Iraq war, the future leaders of the Republican Party will probably come from among the politicians who can say "I told you so" when they run because they said "no" now.

Are we clear on the role of the RNC Chairman or does it need to be better defined? 

As a co-founder of Rebuild the Party, I’m staying neutral in the RNC Chairman race (at least for now); yet, I’m heavily invested in the process and ensuring we elect the best man for the job. 

I’m encouraged that the race for Chairman, hopefully in small part due to our efforts at Rebuild, has morphed into a more open process.  For a job as important as RNC Chairman, candidates should endure at least as stringent a job interview process as candidates for office.  In years when our Party holds the White House, we don’t have such a luxury.  In years when we get crushed, like we have the last two cycles, we do have that luxury.

Our Party is in crisis.  Let’s resort back to our Crisis Management 101 books.  Crisis is defined as a “turning point” and “danger and opportunity.”  At this turning point, we have a tremendous opportunity to leverage our best talent to revive the Party. 

RNC voting members have power, this time around, to choose who our fearless leader will be.  We all have an opportunity to use our voices, and any communication tool at our disposal, to influence the choice of the voting members.

The process for picking an RNC Chairman is crucial.  If we can agree that the RNC Chairman’s race is a job interview, then we should have a specific job description, at least as it fits each cycle, understanding that the job of Chairman with a Republican president differs from the job when there is not.  From what I can see, the only official job description of the RNC Chairman is “CEO” of the Republican National Committee.

Similar to the Vice Presidency, the RNC Chairman’s role is amorphous, so I seek to define it for the upcoming term:

1. Director of Operations at the Republican National Committee, providing guidance and leadership on message, fundraising and political strategy for the Republican Party.

2. Chief messenger of the Party, communicating the Party’s positions, ideas and opinions on current events through all media.

3. Chief fundraiser of the Party, making themselves available to headline Republican events across the country to raise money for the RNC and local Party organizations.

4. Director of Party Relationships, building and maintaining strong relationships with State Party leaders, allied 3rd party groups, issue groups, demographic groups and niche “wing of the party” groups.

What is not included in the job description as Kathryn Jean Lopez touches on (and I’ve been musing about):

1. Chief Policy Advisor for the Republican Party

2. Chief Agenda Setter for the Republican Party

This is not to say that showing leadership on issues, and robust knowledge on tax, energy, health care, and [name that issue] policy, is not a plus.  It is.  But I think we need to take care to frame the RNC Chairman’s job for what it should be, unless I’m totally off base and we expect a Chairman to be what we want in a 2012 presidential candidate.

I’m interested in your thoughts.  

The new year will give us a new President and a newly elected Congress. Only 61 individuals are newly elected to it though. The remaining 474 are simply returning to continue their work (two are going from the house to the Senate). But in this session, all of them are expected to bring about that muct "touted change" that many of them promised along with President-Elect Obama.

How much "change" they will actually bring and what kind of change they will be responsible for has yet to be seen but early on, there exists one change that they will effect right away.

While the nation and the world have entered economic trouble, the 535 collective members of the House of Representatives and Senate will have the opportunity to see their salaries change with an increase of as much as $4,700 a year.

The pay raise is automatic and turns out to be about a 2.8% increase and although it may not sound like much, when one considers the circumstances of the times that we are in, accepting such a pay raise would be criminal.

I say criminal because there do not exist many American institutions that can determine their own salary at their own whim. And there are even fewer institutions that would dare to give themselves more money when they have less money to spend.

On top of that, given the fact that elected federal office holders already make a touch more than $169,000, most Americans feel that that is quite suitable. In fact many Americans might consider it to be a great deal more than suitable. Seeing as how Congress currently has an approval rating of 18.4% and a disapproval rating of 73.4%, I would say that most Americans think that $170,000 for the bad job they are doing is totally inappropriate and way too much.

So why should they get almost $5,000 more for their poor approval?

Even more disturbing, how can they look voters in the eye and claim to understand that the economic climate is rough but that it is necessary for them to shoulder additional costs that Congress had a hand in creating in the first place.

While Congress approves bailing out almost every faction of the private sector that requests help, how can they also accept more money too? Is that the type of change that the elections of ’08 meant, more spending and higher Congressional salaries?

The amount of money we are talking about in regards to the pending pay raise may be minuscule when compared to a 7 or 800 billion dollar bailout but it is still more money being spent. It is still more money being paid by taxpayers and it is still more money than each member of Congress requires. But more than that , accepting a pay raise during the time we are in is a horrific symbolic gesture that essentially tells the American taxpayer “screw you, were in charge and we are going to do what we want, when we want and how we want”. Never mind the out of work salesman who has no conglomerate that can slip congressman or senators a hefty campaign donation and then request federal assistance for themself. Never mind the additional taxes that Democrats will be requesting taxpayers to pay or the out of work taxpayer who can’t afford to pay their property taxes this year. By accepting a pay raise, Congress will be making it clear that they have absolutely no concern for the people whose money they spend.

With Democrats in total control of government, if the 2.8% pay raise goes through, than their hold on power will be short lived. If Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi do not put a stop to increasing their salaries than folks, they are not just greedy, they are downright stupid and should not be in office in the first place.

Having control of government makes Democrats responsible for what happens in government, totally responsible. Accepting a pay raise at a time like this is something that they will have to be held accountable for and they will.

But there is still a chance for them to savwe face. If they act responsibly and derail any efforts to increase their salaries, they can spare themselves the blame and avoid the resulting repercussions of their greed and irresponsibility.

That is one reason why President-Elect Obama should publicly urge the House of Representatives and the Senate to show the American people that they have their priorities in order and that they are aware of the tough times we may be in and demand that they forgo any raise.

It is also why POLITICS 24/7 has issued a national petition.

It is a “Declaration of Rejection of a Congressional Pay Raise ”

As a free society, we cannot simply wait for our representatives to act. We must make our desires known before they act.

In the case of irresponsible government action we cannot wait for irresponsibility to be enacted, we must avoid it from happening . So we have initiated a petition to Congress. It is a petition that calls upon them to reject any increases in their “salaries, staffs and office budgets, as well as personal expense limits, and currently allocated per diem expenses. If such a vote or votes come before Congress at any point between January 2009 and January 2011, we demand that they reject it and that a new vote repealing such increases be brought to the floor of both the House of Representatives and the Senate”.

Simply click here for the "DECLARATION of REJECTION of CONGRESSIONAL PAY RAISE" Online petition and make it clear that will tolerate spending more on Congress than they are worth and that you certainly do not intend to tolerate their greed.

After signing it you must still do two things. Pass this petition on to others. Just cut and past the following link into an email

http://www.gopetition.com/online/24301.html

Then send it to friends, family and business associates and urge them to do the same.

Once you've done that, the second thing you must do is contact the two U.S. Senators representing you in your state and your congressman. Do so either by phone, snail mail or email. No matter how you want to do it, just do it!

If you are really ticked off over this potential pay raise, write your local newspapers too. Send letters to the editors voicing your disapproval of any hint of raising congressional salaries at a time like this.

BE SURE TO SIGN THE PETITION

9 SYMPTOMS OF CONSERVAPHOBIA

conservaphobia: noun. The fear of the American conservative political movement, often based on unfounded stereotypes and distortions.

You might be conservaphobic if:

• You've never really listened to Rush Limbaugh because you're already sure that you disagree with practically everything he's ever said.
• You refer to liberal Catholics, Protestants and Jews as "people of faith" but conservative Catholics, Protestants and Jews as the "religious right" or "radical religious right". (Maybe you have a thing for alliteration too.)
• You think all white Republicans are racists and all black Republicans are sellouts.
• You are a champion of first amendment rights except in public school classrooms and in front of abortion clinics.
• You're glad you're not a Republican because after all, they want to starve school children and senior citizens.
• You actually think that "liberal" and "progressive" are synonymous.
• In your opinion, a government donation to the poor is somehow more effective than yours would be.
• You only listen to and respect the views of "open-minded" people who think like you do.
• You blame society's problems on "religious fanatics" and "corporate greed", never on the irresponsible behavior of individuals.