Republican Party

Panic Grips the GOP as McCain Steadily Sinks in Polls - Will St.Paul Bring a September Surprise?

 

John McCain is the candidate that Conservatives love to hate. The grassroots either despises McCain or at best say they wish McCain could inspire more enthusiasm.

Look around.  There aren't any McCain signs.  No McCain bumper stickers except Anti-McCain bumper stickers.  No McCain buttons except a few that have been vandalized to say "Non-McCain" or "Not McCain".  

Sure, there are a few die-hards out there who say that John McCain is a true war hero or some such notsense.  There are many of his comrades, some of them men known to be honourable, such as Tom McKenney, who has stated that McCain is anything but a hero, and the worst possible candidate.  Of course we feel sorry for what ever suffering he endured in 'Nam, but that makes him one of thousands, and we arent about to suggest any of the others as a Presidential candidate.

What must be the most troubling to the GOP, is that while voters continue to learn how unreliable and vacuous, and hence vulnerable, Mr. Obama is, McCain still continues to drop in the polls.  Particularly the recent FISA vote by BHO, and BHO's waffling on the war has got some of his potential supporters upset. Some of us have long wondered if McCain isn't simply a cats' paw placed to ensure that Obama gets elected, much as was done in Illinois in the Senate race where Alan Keyes served a similar function.  The amazing poll results for lackluster quasi-libertarian Bob Barr (even despite his appalling  neocon running mate WARoot) indicates the seriousness of the displeasure with the "presumptive GOP nominee".

Even though some of the people can indeed be fooled all of time, it is hard to imagine how the best the GOP can offer us is an irresponsible Navy-brat flyboy who graduated 894th in a class of 899, and particularly at a time when we are entering in to a potentially devastating economic & monetary crisis, and escalation of interventionist wars.

Steve Lendman suggests that maybe the Republicans really don't want to lose in November, and discusses several aspects about McCain including his health condition in this interesting piece. 

Bittersweet, And Thank You

Several months ago, at the urging of some friends, I applied for media/blogging credentials to cover the Republican National Convention in my birth city of Minneapolis later this summer.  They were specifically seeking applications from bloggers centering on state politics, and while I mostly write about local stuff here, I figured it wouldn't hurt to apply.

On Monday, I received an email which said, in part:

Thank you for your interest in covering the 2008 Republican National Convention and applying for Special Press Credentials.

This letter is to inform you that IlliniPundit has been approved to receive one (1) Special Press Credential for the purpose of covering the convention.

The assigned credential is to be used only by the person(s) for whom it was requested. Those persons include the following:

  •     Gordy Hulten

This credential allows access to the 200 Level of the Xcel Energy Center as well as access to the Media Center, Press Conference Room and Filing Center.  This credential does not provide access to any broadcast position, camera stand or writing press stand, nor does it provide access to the delegate floor.

I was surprised when I first read it, and I'm still surprised.  Our readership keeps growing, but in now way did I think our audience was large enough to justify credentialing me, especially being from deepest-blue Illinois.  And I felt a bit overwhelmed - covering the RNC is more than a bit out of my league, and I've never been to a national convention before.

But mostly I felt grateful - this opportunity would never have presented itself if not for you  - the readers, posters and commenters on IP.com. 

As it turns out, I will not be able to attend the Convention, and so the invitation is a bit bittersweet for me - I'm honored and disappointed at the same time. 

But mostly I just want to say, "Thank you."  This place is only worthwhile, and worthy of such recognition, because of you, and when things like this happen, it's a stark reminder of that.

IL GOP Convention

My report of the 2008 IL GOP Convention:

The Illinois Republican Party had their convention this weekend in Decatur. I was there; my first convention. It was an eye-opening learning experience. i was glad for the opportunity to see how things work first hand. Delegates from all over the state came together to approve a new platform, elect delegates to the national convention, as well as a new National Committeeman and Committeewoman. Unfortunately, despite spending the money and taking the time away from my family, I found that delegates had very little to do at the convention besides rubber-stamp what was presented by committees appointed by the State Central Committee. We were not given past minutes of the convention, no agenda, no copy of the Rules; there were no microphones set up around the convention for input from delegates. If there were rules preventing delegates from speaking, we can't be sure because the Rules committee presented their report that they had met, made new rules, and this report was accepted (meaning the unknown rules were accepted) by a voice vote of the delegates despite calls from the floor to know what the rules were.

Of special interest to many attending was the issue to reinstate direct election of the State Central Committeemen. I attended the Resolutions and Platform committee meeting on Friday and I was dismayed to hear that some on the committee didn't want the issue presented to the convention, because "the delegates might not be Republicans." I found this to be somewhat curious, because I understand the delegates are elected at county conventions, the same way the Central Committee is elected. I was also dismayed to see how confused the committee was about this issue; a great deal of time was wasted on having what they were voting on and how they should vote explained to them. They ended up submitting a negative resolution to the convention regarding this issue, to NOT support SB600, legislation that would reinstate direct election of the Central Commttee. I'm not sure if they all realized that they were sending the issue to the convention, and I'm not sure if many of the delegates understood what they were voting on either. The vote was meaningless anyway; it wouldn't have changed anything had the convention rejected the resolution.

To hear more about the ineresting goings on at the convention, listen to the archived Champion News radio show: http://www.championnews.net/talk/podcast.html

Come Home America. Reject the Empire.

The continuing expensive, brutal, illegal and seemingly interminable war in Iraq was the defining issue in the 2006 and portends to be so in 2008 election, as one cause of the fracture of among conservatives, departure of GOP membership in droves, and the cause of the impending November trainwreck.  There is another reason for Americans and particularly young people to be concerned.  This is not a push-button war fought with unmanned drones and electromechanical technology.  This version of Neocon Playstation X demands bodies for its meatgrinder.  Do you feel a draft?

It has been pointed out in this forum that neoconservative warmongering is definitely not part of the conservative Republican tradition, and both McCainoids and Obamites scoff and laugh at this notion.  There is a a new book supporting this concept.  Bill Kauffman, onetime Senate staffer and think tank editor turned essayist and author, who lives in upstate New York has written - Ain't My America: The Long, Noble History of Antiwar Conservatism and Middle-American Anti-Imperialism.  This book is the subject of an excellent review by Doug Bandow.  Doug Bandow is a Washington-based political writer and policy analyst and Robert A. Taft Fellow with the American Conservative Defense Alliance. He served as a special assistant to President Ronald Reagan and as a senior policy analyst in the 1980 Reagan for President campaign.  Some excerpts from the book and review follow.

 

*

"[T]here is a long and honorable (if largely hidden) tradition of antiwar thought and action among the American Right. It stretches from ruffle-shirted Federalists who opposed the War of 1812 and civic-minded mugwump critics of the Spanish-American War on up through the Midwestern isolationists who formed the backbone of the pre-World War II America First Committee and the conservative Republicans who voted against U.S. involvement in NATO, the Korean conflict, and Vietnam. And although they are barely audible amid the belligerent clamor of today's shock-and-awe Right, libertarians and old-fashioned traditionalist conservatives are among the sharpest critics of the Iraq War and the imperial project of the Bush Republicans."

..."In pre-imperial America, conservatives objected to war and empire out of jealous regard for personal liberties, a balanced budget, the free enterprise system, and federalism," explains Kauffman. To them, dissent was "a patriotic imperative." But another commonality was being vilified and worse. He adds: "As the American Firsters discovered, protesting war is a lousy career move. Dissenters are at best calumniated, at worst thrown in jail for standing against foreign wars and the drive thereto."

If today the Right seems a wholly-owned subsidiary of the War Party, the American people are less enthused. Naturally, this worries the elites who believe their role is to initiate wars for other Americans to fight. Observes Kauffman, "Bush Republicans and pro-war Democrats have fretted mightily over recent surveys from the Council on Foreign Relations showing that the American people are reverting to – horrors! – isolationism, which the CFR defines invidiously as a hostility toward foreigners but which I see as a wholesome, pacific, and very American reluctance to intervene in the political and military quarrels of other nations."

Indeed, the essence of nonintervention, however labeled, is that it is not the American purpose to engage in global social engineering. Whether the genesis of that belief is fear of or respect for foreigners really doesn't matter. This reluctance to intervene is the highest form of internationalism. That is, noninterventionists respect other peoples enough to believe that Americans do not have the unilateral right to roam the world killing, maiming, and injuring whoever happens to be Washington's declared enemy of the moment in pursuit of whatever happens to be Washington's declared objective of the moment.

Kauffman appropriately begins with the nation's founders, men whose views on war are dismissed as quaint by most politicians today. For instance, George Mason told the 1788 Virginia convention debating ratification of the U.S. Constitution: "I abominate and detest the idea of a government, where there is a standing army." Notes Kauffman, "His view was not anomalous; militarism was."  Imagine that, national politicians opposed to war. But a wariness of military entanglements was a constant of early America. There is, Kauffman observes, George Washington's Farewell Address, which is "as close to an expression of early American political omnifariousness as one might find," a veritable "sacred text among conservative critics of empire." American children typically read it, or parts of it, but how many learn that, as Kauffman writes, "Washington's valedictory amounts to a repudiation of U.S. foreign policy from 1917 to the present"?

Then there was the Mexican-American War (which Thoreau vigourously condemned - r.k.) , a shameless spasm of imperialist war-mongering growing out of a border incident created by the U.S....Kauffman's lauds an obscure Whig politician by the name of Abraham Lincoln who exposed the lies that brought America into the Mexican-American War, as well as a Congregationalist minister, Samuel J. May, who denounced the war from his pulpit....The Spanish-American War and, even worse, the brutal suppression of Filipino freedom fighters – who resisted American imperial rule just like they resisted Spanish imperial rule – moved a step beyond previous conflicts. An estimated 200,000 Filipinos, most of them civilians, died. Kauffman cites Felix Morley: "The deeper result was to make Washington for the first time classifiable as a world capital, governing millions of people overseas as subjects rather than as citizens. The private enslavement of Negroes was ended. The control of alien populations had begun."

....If Woodrow Wilson was liberal, his liberalism was symbolized by the jackboot...

Support for nation-building has come to dominate much of the Right. Even liberal Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) receives right-wing accolades because he supports visiting death and destruction along the Euphrates. But Kauffman points to other conservatives – the traditionalist icon Russell Kirk, for instance, who denounced proponents of "American hegemony." ...Current political heroes include Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), the sole antiwar voice in the Republican presidential race, and Rep. John "Jimmy" Duncan (R-Tenn.), an old line conservative who told Kauffman: "I've become convinced that most of these wars have been brought about because of a desire for money and power and prestige." Duncan, ever gracious to those around him, "is a throwback, a Taft Republican in search of a party of peace and frugality," as well as "a glorious anachronism as a representative of a place and a people," enthuses Kauffman.

Most disastrously, writes Kauffman, "the Republicans in the age of George W. Bush have become a War Party, nothing less and certainly nothing more. Dissident GOP voices are rare and unwelcome echoes." Even more tragic is the fact that the so-called Religious Right has joined the War Party. Notes the waggish Kauffman: "The Christian conservatives who have supplied Bush with an indispensable, almost blasphemously enthusiastic following might consider alternative Christian political traditions," such as that of William Jennings Bryan, "Or, if I am not being too much of an originalist, a biblical fundamentalist, that of Jesus Christ."

Conservatism once was an honorable term, associated with "decentralism, liberty, economy in government, religious faith, family-centeredness, parochialism, smallness," notes Kauffman. But he thunders: "The cockeyed militarism of the Bush administration, and the historical ignorance and cowardice of the subsidized Right that has cheered him on, have poisoned the word conservative. For years, if not wars, to come." Today, he complains, the word conservative "reeks of manslaughter and militarism."

Ain't My America is deeply moving, with its eloquent retelling of the largely lost American tradition of conservatives against war. The loss of that tradition has cost Americans much blood and treasure. In closing this fine volume Kauffman echoes George McGovern, calling us all to rediscover our better nature,: "Come home, America. Reject the empire."

 

 

Pretending to be Conservatives

Peggy Noonan

Most party leaders in Washington are stupid – detached, played out, stuck in the wisdom they learned when they were coming up, in '78 or '82 or '94. Whatever they learned then, they think pertains now. In politics especially, the first lesson sticks. For Richard Nixon, everything came back to Alger Hiss.

They are also – Hill leaders, lobbyists, party speakers – successful, well-connected, busy and rich. They never guessed, back in '86, how government would pay off! They didn't know they'd stay! They came to make a difference and wound up with their butts in the butter.

And:

"This was a real wakeup call for us," someone named Robert M. Duncan, who is chairman of the Republican National Committee, told the New York Times. This was after Mississippi. "We can't let the Democrats take our issues." And those issues would be? "We can't let them pretend to be conservatives," he continued. Why not? Republicans pretend to be conservative every day.

Yep.

Rauschenberger Running for RNC

Former State Sen. Steve Rauschenberger, a lobbyist working for Rod Blagojevich's largest campaign fundraiser, wants to be Illinois next Republican National Committeeman. 

From an email he sent to County Republican Chairmen:

On June 6-7, we Illinois Republicans will gather at the state convention in Decatur and choose our next Republican National Committeeman. I'm emailing you because I've been approached by some Party leaders and queried about submitting my name as a candidate for the post.

However, before I did that, I wanted to seek your counsel and input.

It's my understanding that there are several fine individuals who are potential nominees; and I hope to support whoever our new National Committeeman may be. Like the others, I would be willing and honored to serve. But only if you and my fellow Republicans determine that I'm the best choice.

After fifteen years in the State Senate, I believe my record has probably been pretty well vetted and is certainly well known. My approach to public and Party service has always been to solve problems, and to work with (and unite) Republicans, while advancing the principles of smaller government, lower taxes, individual freedom, and traditional values.

Since leaving the State Senate last year, I've become an Illinois small businessman, and am working hard to lower our unemployment rate and increase our tax base. But, I've not retired from our Party or its activities! I've continued to work hard and invest in building and strengthening the Illinois GOP. Among other things, I'm currently serving as President of the United Republican Fund, which has been actively working with party organizations in recruiting, training and funding state-level GOP candidates in preparation for this November.

As you and I are painfully well aware, our Party is facing some challenging times. We Republicans must work together and find solutions. Our state, our Party, our communities and our kids deserve no less. On that we can all agree.

Fact is Illinois' next Republican National Committeeman will have a tall job ahead of him. If chosen, I cannot promise success. But I can promise that I would represent the Illinois Republican Party with the dedication, integrity, hard work and professionalism that it deserves.

Therefore, I'd very much appreciate your thoughtful consideration of my possible candidacy; and your candid advice and feedback as to whether I should run.

Please feel free to contact me at any time. Thank you for your service and potential support.

Steven J. Rauschenberger
Rauschenberger Partners, LLC
551 Tollgate Road, Ste B
Elgin, IL 60123

E-Mail: senator@srauschenberger.com

(I've removed his phone numbers, as he included his home number and I didn't want to publish it without permission.)

For some reason, even though some Illinois conservatives think Rauschenberger is some sort of Republican ideal, I think replacing Bob Kjellander with Steve Rauschenberger as Committeeman would be like making no change at all.

Invitation: Enhancing Democracy in Champaign County

An open invitation from Champaign County Libertarian Party Chair Dianna Visek:

Would you like to see more participation in the
political process? Greater voter turnout? A wider
range of views? More informed voters?

Then please join us at 7 pm on Thursday May 8 in the
auditorium of the Urbana Free Library to discuss:
"Enhancing Democracy in Champaign County: Where Do We
Go from Here?"

We will have a brief overview of issues affecting
democracy in Champaign County and brainstorm about
ways we might enhance it. We will then select the
issues we find most important and form working groups
to address them. Refreshments will be served.

Although this meeting is sponsored by the Champaign
Co. Libertarian Party, it will have no official
involvement after the working groups are formed. The
Urbana Free Library is not sponsoring this event.

Our goal: A coalition of diverse individuals and
viewpoints united to increase public participation in
the democratic process. No matter what your political
affiliation, we'd like your help. Please join us.

Politics and Young Voters

After the breakdown of another thread, I asked myself, what's the best way for political parties, of all stripes, to encourage more young people to vote, get involved, to get interested in the overall political process?  I have a few ideas, but I know that the wider IP community would have more, and probably better, ideas.  First, a couple of set-up questions...

 

1.  What's the best definition of a "young voter"?  Is it a certain age range (18-25 or maybe 18-27)?  Is it educational status (high school vs community college vs university, or some combination)?  Is it employment status (full-time vs part-time vs part-time while in school)?  Is it some combination of everything I've listed above, or maybe something completely different, something outside the little box I just described?

2.  What's the best way to get a young voter to connect with a party, a candidate, a political philosophy, whatever?  What's the best way to get a young voter to connect, and then get them to act on their connection, by voting, by organizing for a party or candidate, by maybe even running for office themselves?

3.  What's the best way to keep a young voter connected, to keep them involved, so that they continue that connection into "non-young voter" status?  Not necessarily keep them chained to a specific party or candidate per se, but more how do we maintain their interest in the process and continue to keep it relevant for the voter?

4.  What am I forgetting, or missing?

I'm not writing this to mock anyone, or to throw gasoline on the floor and wait for the trolls to come by with matches, but I want to ask this seriously, as a "non-young voter":  How do we get young people to get connected and stay connected?  I'm not as interested in hearing about how a specific political party or candidate can connect with young voters, so much as I'm interested in hearing how we can get young voters connected and interested in the first place.

 

 

HG

Lincoln Day Dinner Wrapup

The Champaign County Republican Party Lincoln Day Dinner was last night, and it was great to see so many new faces, and to see again some Republicans I'd not seen for a while. 

State Senator Bill Brady spoke, and Tom Kacich wrote a bit about it.

McCain thinking outside the box

Interesting article from Politico.com:  McCain readies unorthodox campaign.  In essence, McCain is shying away from the traditional, top-down, centralized Presidential campaign; instead, McCain plans on designing his campaign to be much more decentralized, more regional-based style of campaign.  Some interesting quotes:

McCain strategists insist their paradigm can work. And the sour national climate for the GOP, McCain’s limited money supply and his preference for an impromptu campaign style that he can take to all parts of the country mean there is no other option but to break the mold, says one aide.

“To run a normal, typical race like a normal, typical Republican, we would win 45 percent of the popular vote and 189 electoral votes,” this aide says. “You can’t just go to Columbus.

Also:

...perhaps most importantly — McCain will rely on free media to an unprecedented degree to get out his message in a fashion that aims to not only minimize his financial disadvantage but also drive a triangulated contrast among himself, the Democratic nominee and President Bush.

Obviously, there's a lot that could go wrong with this.  A regional manager could be ineffective and ruin the campaign for that region; the friction between the RNC, the McCain campaign, and other staffers could bog down the campaign; and so on.  Also, the campaign finance aspect is beyond my ken; I don't know what the stated "jointly funded" idea means in the real world, during the General election.  The sour grapes from unnamed Republican opratives is kinda interesting as well; my reading of that section of the article is that people don't like something new or different, or maybe they're upset about not having a job opening in a more traditional campaign.

Personally, I like this idea, initially at least.  Given how unusual and wacky this primary season has been, I have no idea what'll actually happen.  But this seems to be a good plan, designed to maximize McCain's strengths and minimize his weaknesses.

 

 

HG

Five Factions of Illinois Republicans

From Illinois activist and consultant Charlie Johnston:

If things are bad in Washington, they are even worse in Illinois. Here we have five identifiable corrosive factions of Republicans that, like roving bands of rival warlords, do little or no damage to the real opposition while engaging in incessant internecine destruction, giving any transcendent, unifying leaders little chance to emerge. We shoot survivors in their cradle.

First, there are the arsonists. You know that bunch: in 2006 they declared anyone who did not support Oberweis in the gubernatorial primary a heretic who should be burned at the stake. This year they declared that anyone who DID support Oberweis in the congressional primary was a heretic who should be burned at the stake. They don’t get excited about supporting someone and are only happy when they have someone they are committed to destroying. While priding themselves on their brutal honesty, one quickly realizes it is the brutality, not the honesty, that excites them.

Second we have the looters. They rise until they reach a point where they can use their position to enrich themselves. They consider it a successful political career if they make a mint regardless of how bad they damage the party.

Then there are the quislings, those who are busy selling out to save their hides, making ads for Obama, voting to raise taxes, always looking for a means to advance themselves at the expense of their party – the Vichy French, as it were.

Fourth we have the clueless, those lovely souls who mean well but think salvation is to be found in the next iteration of the 72-hour-program and never pause to think that maybe we ought to actually stand for something and mean it.

Finally there are what I call the diplomats of doom or the Scottish Lords. These are always looking to find a way to negotiate surrender to the Democrats before the battle begins in exchange for some crummy little perk. If the Democrats promise to take us over the cliff with taxes and spending, our GOP diplomats of doom promise to take us over that cliff only half as fast. And they wonder why the rank and file don’t rally to their flag.

I don't necessarily agree - I think there are those of us active in our local areas who don't fit into any of these five templates.  But as you move up the food chain in Illinois Republican circles, it becomes increasingly to fit people and organizations into these categories.

Discuss.

(Hat tip: CapFax)

Champaign GOP Lincoln Day Dinner

The Champaign County Republican Party has announced the details for the annual Lincoln Day Dinner:

2008 Champaign County Republican Lincoln Day Dinner
Special Guest Speaker: Senator Bill Brady
Sunday, April 27th
VIP Reception - 5 p.m.
Dinner & Program - 6 p.m. (doors upen at 5:30 pm.)
Holiday Inn Conference Center, Urbana, IL

You can purchase tickets and sponsorships online here.

 

 

LaHood for RNC

Retiring Congressman Ray LaHood is campaigning to replace Illinois' controversial Republican National Committeeman Bob Kjellander.

LaHood, who is completing his seventh two-year term in the House and isn’t seeking re-election to Congress, said Thursday he has sent a letter to members of the Republican State Central Committee seeking their support to become the national committeeman.

The Illinois GOP has three members on the national committee — the state party chairman, and one woman and one man. The man is Bob Kjellander of Springfield, whose term ends with the completion of this year’s Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn.

“Kjellander is not running again,” LaHood said, adding that he has spoken with state GOP Chairman Andy McKenna and others about the committeeman post.

(Hat tip: McLean County Pundit)

Advancing to the Bottom

In another post, I had a few semi-complimentary words to say about Ann Coulter and the response was the usual vitriol. I suggested in so many words that people were afraid to admit they enjoyed her columms and I heard nothing in the replies that disabused me of that notion, but I did hear that fear formulated in a different way, in a way that struck me. It was suggested that Ann was doing nothing to advance the conservative cause. I have no reply to that, and the more I thought about it, the more I wonder; who is advancing the conservative cause?

Of course, on balance, no one is advancing conservatism because conservatism is in general retreat. That doesn’t mean some conservatives are not making a positive difference (by slowing the rate of decline, presumably).

As much as I admire our president’s remarkable tenacity on Iraq, I would not describe him as advancing the conservative cause. McCain won’t, and makes no such promise.

What national figures, politicians, pundits, intellectuals or celebrities do you perceive as advancing the cause?  And don't forget to say why.  If there are others that are hurting the cause, by inexcusable rudeness or otherwise, let's hear about that also.

John

Barickman Re-Elected GOP Chair

Jason Barickman was unanimously re-elected as Chairman of the Champaign County Republican Party tonight.

Anybody have any updates from the Democrats' Convention?

UPDATE:  Congratulations as well to Tony Fabri on being unanimously re-elected as Democratic Party Chair.

Heroic Conservatism

Former Bush Speechwriter Michael Gerson’s book Heroic Conservatism is an interesting and worthwhile read for any Republican.  I certainly think that it provides some foundational material for the Republican Party of the future, but I think it also fails in ways that bring to mind the failings of the Bush Administration.

Gerson is an evangelical who became part of the early Bush team in 1999 as a speech writer and advisor.  In that position, he can certainly lay claim to being one of the architects of “compassionate conservatism”. I found a lot to like in some of the principles laid out by Gerson, but there is plenty of room for criticism as well.  Much like our current president, Gerson seems to disdain any criticism, constructive or otherwise, of “compassionate conservatism” and instead jumps into the bunker of righteousness.

I recall being intrigued by the “compassionate conservatism” theme of Bush in 2000.  As a conservative Republican I’ve never seen anything that prevented the coexistence of these two principles and a lot that joined them.  The fact that we had a President who would take this message straight to the American people was exciting. 

GOP Turnout Statewide

Go ahead and make all the jokes you want about the state of the Illinois Republican Primary, as they've certainly earned it.  But there's even more evidence against this meme that Illinois Republicans are leaving the party in droves to support Barack Obama.  The total number of GOP ballots cast in Illinois:

1988        899,153
1990        805,381
1992        878,438
1994        729,372
1996        868,030
1998        759,102
2000        781,318
2002        946,339
2004        702,658
2006        751,627
2008        883,647

Clearly, Democratic turnout Tuesday was phenomenal.  But the underlying reason is that they attracted a huge number of voters who normally don't vote in either Primary

Will those voters vote Democratic in November?  If Obama is the nominee - almost certainly. 

For the rest of the ticket?  Perhaps - it will depend on the race and the locality and the issues, etc. just as it does every other year.  But it will also depend on how closely local and state candidates tie themselves to Obama if he is not the nominee.

And, of course, if Clinton somehow wins the nomination, then almost all those independent voters are completely up for grabs.

On the Destruction of the Republican Party

Peggy Noonan:

On the pundit civil wars, Rush Limbaugh declared on the radio this week, "I'm here to tell you, if either of these two guys [Mr. McCain or Mike Huckabee] get the nomination, it's going to destroy the Republican Party. It's going to change it forever, be the end of it!"

This is absurd. George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party, by which I mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against each other. He did this on spending, the size of government, war, the ability to prosecute war, immigration and other issues.

One, I don't think the party is distroyed, as it is splintered and changing.

Two, a number of Presidential candidates could have and should have repaired such splintering by campaigning on conservative ideas and issues.  Instead, we have a festival of pandering.  Neither McCain nor Romney nor Huckabee will destroy the Republican Party.  But they each have declined the opportunity to undo the damage done by the last seven years of profligate waste in favor of promising that the federal government can and should solve everyone's problems for them.  And so, even if one of them wins the White House, the Republican Party will continue to drift without an ideology, without any philosophical underpinning for a daily diet of "problem-solving" reactions by their administration, without a direction.

As disappointed as I am in the wasted opportunities of the present administration, I'm more disappointed in the campaigns and candidacies of McCain, Romney, Huckabee and Giuliani.  Each clearly knows the failures of the past seven years, and each of them is hoping to exacerbate rather than remedy those failures.

Primary "Winners"

Along the lines of my last rant, Prof. Brian Gaines  of the University of Illinois wrote an article that was in the News-Gazette last week that talks about the absurdity of declaring winners in primaries.  While the News-Gazette won't let you get it, you're lucky because the Springfield Journal Register has the column available on line.

New Media Disappoints Like Old Media

IP is disappointed in his potential nominee and I think I have a culprit for him. I am disappointed with how the new media has covered this primary season. 

Going into this election, I was excited about a Republican presidential nomination which would be waged in part in the pages of the blogosphere.  For many years, conservatives bemoaned the lack of depth in the mainstream media coverage of elections.  The thirty second sound bite was the metaphor for a political process gone wrong. 

One of the reasons I like Fred Thompson was because over the course of the months leading up to his entry into the race, not only was I able to learn what he wanted to do as President, I actually was able to get into the why of his presidential quest; to understand his philosophical underpinnings.

And to some degree, within the blogosphere, we saw a lot of that.  But not nearly enough.  The vast majority of articles regarding the candidates over the course of the last year were about how much money they raised, how they were doing in straw polls and real polls, and speculation (stated with certainty) about how electable they were.  And as the on-line pundits focused more and more on the horse race aspects of the campaign and less on the candidates’ philosophies, the candidates responded in kind.  They talked about what was being written about and ideas got left out in the cold. 

Candidates had to spend more time explaining why they got rid of a deputy press secretary and less time about their plans on Social Security.  John McCain spent the summer explaining that he wasn’t going to drop out of the race after he raised the embarrassing sum of eleven million dollars in the second quarter of last year.  Every nuance of the inside political game was picked over for days and discussions of how good the candidates might be as president were set aside.  Television ads rarely were critiqued on their content, but instead on “how it will play”.  Is that important?  Of course it is, but can’t some time be devoted to the candidates’ issues?

Of course, there are plenty of exceptions.  But in general, the blogosphere has done little to drive the debate to a higher level in this presidential campaign.

Now lest people think this is all about Fred’s dismal showing, I assure you it’s not.   I do think that he would have done better in an environment that was less horse race intensive.  But I also know that he’s made a lot of mistakes that would have been mistakes regardless of the political culture he was running in.  But in general, our party is hurt when we talk less about issues, ideas and solutions.

In fairness to center-right blogs, I talked to a liberal yesterday who felt the same about the center-left blogs.

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