Tag: conservative movement

The Contract with America ain’t walkin’ through that door

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 1 Comment

Washington, D.C. is concluding a week under a blanket of snow with a promise of a new Contract With America… sort of.  Under the headline, “Conservative Manifesto coming soon,” Politico reports that leaders of the inside-the-beltway Conservarati are drafting a “mission statement for the right.”

There are two problems with this.  Just as Republican presidential candidates fell all over themselves to quote Ronald Reagan in last year’s primaries, Republicans hopeful that 2010 is the next 1994 are looking to resurrect the Contract with America.

There are two problems with this.

First, establishment conservatives are not the most appropriate voices for an anti-establishment message – and if anything is clear about the electorate, it’s the anti-establishment sentiment.

Second, and more important, the original contract was a political platform, a promise to voters that, if elected, Republicans would follow a certain policy course.  It was not a statement of principles, but a set of specific policy goals.  From tea party groups to conservative organizations, the institutions creating these new Contracts are asking for something from government.

The best “Contract with America 2.0” I’ve seen was written by Matt Lewis, who actually thought through policy ideas and has proposed laws which would roll back free speech restrictions, promote personal retirement savings, and promote national security.  But forward-thinking policies should not find themselves listed under a recycled term.

The Contract with America was a great idea in 1994.  Sixteen years later, conservatives should be looking forward to the next big thing – not the last.

REAL journalism on the right

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

The Daily Beast’s list of the top 25 conservative journalists makes one thing obvious: the Daily Beast either has little concept of what journalism actually is or felt the need to create a list with 25 names rather than, say, a dozen.  The list ranks the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity highly – and while they are influential commentators and entertainers, they are not journalists.

The list has several good picks such as Andrew Breitbart, Matt Drudge, and Michael Barone.  Like Limbaugh and Friends, they have opinions; but unlike the typical radio show host they illustrate their views with information.

Good opinion journalism was best summed up in a seminar given by a reporter who should have been on the list, Tim Carney: “Nothing convinces people like facts they didn’t know before.”

Case in point: in a recent blog post, Carney explored the reaction of Sen. Chuck Schumer to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United vs. FEC decision.  Schumer bemoaned that the decision “open[ed] the floodgates” for “special interest money” from large companies.  With a little bit of research, Carney discovered that Schumer was the top recipient of funds from three of the top five industries in terms of campaign giving.  He also found about a dozen former Schumer staffers working as lobbyists.  In other words, when Schumer defends campaign finance regulations, he’s defending a system that he has found very lucrative.

A talk radio host may get laughs by calling Sen. Schumer “Chuck the Schmuck” or joking about the New York political machine functions so comfortably in – and there’s certainly a place for that.  But real journalists like Tim Carney are the ones who find the factual nuggets of truth necessary for commentary and satire.

And because that job is so important, it’s equally important to get the job description right.

Oh look, there’s The Point flying away

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

The National Tea Party Convention, which starts today, has been criticized for being a thinly-veiled attempt to profit off of grassroots excitement.  Whether or not the criticism is valid, the event has reportedly drawn 1,000 activists from across the country.  Event organizers are now expected to announce a national organizing strategy for 2010:

Volunteers here intend to propose a series of broad “First Principles” which have already been generally embraced by most Tea Party chapters around the country. They include: fiscal responsibility, upholding the constitution, and national security… Once elected to office, members would be required to join a Congressional Tea Party Caucus, attend regular meetings and be held accountable for the votes they cast. Those who stray from the Tea Party path would risk losing it’s support and a likely re-election challenge.

Here’s a major flaw: tea party participants across the country were largely dissatisfied with either party and almost universally with the system of incumbency and party politics which had taken over DC.  For movements that rail against centralization, tTop-down organizing structures are doomed to fail.

Untold Tales of Massachusetts

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

In discussing the Scott Brown victory with friends and colleagues over the past few days, some angles of the race incredibly haven’t been picked up by the endless mainstream news media coverage.

#1: Specter’s Swap caused the Bay State flop

A casual conversation with a veteran campaign operative brought up an interesting angle to Brown’s victory: that  Arlen Specter may have unwittingly delivered this seat to Republican control with his April party switch.

Back in April, Specter’s switch didn’t just make the rallying cry of “The 41st Vote” relevant, it also eliminated the Republican primary between the liberal Specter and conservative Pat Toomey.  Remember Toomey had just barely lost a 2004 primary challenge and was poised to overtake Specter in 2010 – if he had the right resources.

If you were a conservative donor somewhere outside of Massachusetts or Pennsylvania, to whom would you donate money if you had to choose: a well-known candidate who had legitimate shot to help return the Senate to its roots, or a long-shot barely-known state senator trying to take Ted Kennedy’s seat?  Specter’s swap in April made Brown the best investment when his nine point poll deficit was announced earlier this month.

Who said Arlen Specter never helped the GOP?

#2:  Speaking of polling…

Remember how Democrats were roundly criticizing Rasmussen polls for supposedly being skewed in favor of Republicans?  Well, it was Rasmussen who first signaled that this race may be closer than the conventional wisdom would suggest it could be.

#3: Jack E. Robinson helped break the “color barrier” for the Massachusetts Congressional Delegation

No, it isn’t THAT Jackie Robinson, and that “color barrier” is, of course, blue.  Robinson has been a Republican candidate for multiple state offices since his 2000 challenge of Ted Kennedy, but is considered something of a joke among Massachusetts Republicans.  Yet Brown took him at least semi-seriously in their primary match-up.

The contested primary was no contest – Brown won 89% of the vote.  But Mike Rossettie, who blogs at RedMassGroup (and used to run the political machine that was the UMass Republican Club) made the point that the primary was an opportunity to campaign, drum up name recognition, and win endorsements and free media.

NPR’s (unnecessary) mea culpa

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

NPR has sort of apologized in a post by their ombudsman for the controversy drummed up by this cartoon:

The cartoon drew the venom of conservative commenters for both its use of the loaded term “tea-bagger” and the fact that it was summarily dismisssive of the tea party movement.  And though the cartoon has an undeniable ideological bent, the real problem here is not with NPR.  There are two issues at play.

First, conservatives in the Tea Party movement have not found a way to own the term “teabagging.”  There are ways to do so, but they require an attitude adjustment (or, some might say, an attitude problem) that many establishment conservative movement organizations are unlikely to accept.

Second – and more importantly – is an important aspect of all conservative cries of media bias.  Consider this reply from an NPR staffer:

“Would it be nice if there were other Web-original cartoons from other perspectives to run with Fiore?” said [NPR News Executive Editor Dick] Meyer. “Sure. We think there are and we’ve been looking for a while in fact. And I think criticism that we don’t have a conservative cartoon is certainly legitimate and reasonable.”

The problem isn’t really that Mark Fiore made a cartoon that skewers the right, it’s that the right isn’t in a position to skewer back.

Polling for messages

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post about polling, check out the poll being conducted by Organizing for America, the de facto campaign wing of the White House.  With so many plates spinning at once, it’s a smart move by the DNC.   There’s plenty of energy on the right as 2010 kicks off – but not all of it is being ably mobilized by the Republican party.  A poll like this allows the Democrats to not only identify which issues will spur on their base, but also to communicate to activists individually instead of painting them all with the same brush.

Happy Tea Party Day

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 1 Comment

On this date in history, a group of rabble-rousers dumped tea into Boston Harbor to protest what they determined was excessive taxation and government regulation.   Depending on perspective, they were either patriots carrying the banner of freedom, reckless instigators, or terrorists.  (To quote the fine philosopher Obi-wan Kenobi,  “Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.”)

In today’s political parlance, the term “Tea Party” means something entirely different.  But curiously, this movement which took it’s name from the 1773 event also carries some of the same baggage.

There can be no doubt that the tea party events have created excitement around conservative activism that hasn’t been seen in some time.  Colin Delaney of Tech President notes that the movement boasts savvy organizers, focusing on creating online fund raising and voter data networks. And while in generic ballots, so-called “Tea Party Candidates” have polled better than Republicans, that doesn’t necessarily mean electoral defeat for the GOP.  It will encourage establishment Republicans to take the small-government ideals of the Tea Party movement seriously.

The Tea Party movement does have one key challenge, and that is the plethora of groups taking credit.  As the old saying (not by Obi-Wan) goes, failure is an orphan, but success has many fathers.  As established, inside-the-beltway conservatives angle for the support (and money) of the tea partiers, the risk is that activists will be turned off by the perception that outsiders are taking over their movement.

Gallup-ing to the right

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Fellow UMass alum Dan Flynn points out Gallup’s evidence that Americans are trending more conservative in 2009 than they did in 2008.  The most important aspect of this revelation is the cause: apparently, independents are shifting right. And this wasn’t just self-identification: conservative positions on government involvement in business, union influence, and even gun rights became more popular.

Note that these numbers reflect people’s issue position and not necessarily their political party preference.  As the Republican party is finding out in NY-23, the two are not necessarily one and the same.  Even if the GOP tallies a pair of victories in New Jersey and Virginia next week, the lessons for a return to power nationally may be learned in upstate New York.