Right Wing Nut House

I risk life and limb writing about the former Alaska governor. Like the supporters of failed presidential candidate and official GOP weirdo Ron Paul, any negative comments I would make about the real conservative’s favorite MILF is going to bring an army of supporters to her defense while trashing me in the most unseemly terms imaginable.

Fortunately, I am well hidden in this corner of the blogosphere, and few real conservatives would be caught dead reading anything I write. However, Google search is ubiquitous in its reach and chances are, there are a couple of dozen Palinbots who will receive an email in their inbox informing them of my post. At that point, their email lists will fairly crackle with activity as my offense against the Goddess will be spread far and wide, bringing wrack and ruin down upon me.

Thus, I wade into the morass that Palin has made of her career with a little trepidation, but with a clear eye and my usual muddled head. The latter might usually be seen as a deficiency but when writing about Palin, it may actually prove a boon since what other frame of mind can you employ to write about a woman so challenged by fact and in love with fancy?

Let’s get the facts out of the way first; there has never been a vice presidential candidate that was treated so unfairly by the media in the modern age. The number of rumors, falsehoods, and lies that were published as fact about her is truly astonishing and has no parallel in modern politics. (Such blackening the name of candidates with prevarications was routine in the 19th century but died out when newspapers became more independent of parties.)

I am surprised that I have not read that Sarah Palin bites the heads off chickens and drinks their blood. Charles Martin took the trouble of listing the media lies about Palin, stopping at 84 linked entries - that’s links to the lies as well as links that clearly debunk the lies.

This does not include the vicious attacks made in various magazines from Vanity Fair to Redbook that repeat some of the lies while making up a few more of their own. I challenge any fair minded liberal to refute these facts.

I normally hate to see any conservative treated so abysmally by those who claim to be, if not unbiased, then fair; if not balanced, then reasonable. Palin’s treatment has been neither fair nor reasonable. Many explanations have been given for this including the unprovable assumption that liberals hate strong conservative women. I think many liberals hate all conservatives whether they are men, women, transgendered, or eunuchs. Their mode of attack changes a little from sex to sex so perhaps it appears they single out women of the right for special treatment, but it’s really all part of the same mindset; conservatives are poopy heads and nothing is out of bounds in criticizing them.

The question before us is can the narrative regarding Palin be altered to make her a viable candidate for 2012? With 60% of the American people currently dead set against voting for her for president under any circumstances, it would seem to be a very tall mountain for her to climb in order for her to achieve the respect of the voters; something she never had to begin with among a majority and seems to have damaged herself further by abandoning her office. Her tabloid like-presence in American culture has also dragged her down, as has the fact that very few of the elites in the Republican party take her seriously as a party leader.

And well they shouldn’t. They may fear her influence with the 20% or so of the party who would support her aspirations in 2012, but beyond that, they and most of the rest of us find it difficult to take one so shallow and uninformed seriously. As far as I can tell, she has done little in the intervening year since the election to rectify her appalling ignorance of the world, and even domestic issues like health care. The author of the “death panels” remark may have succeeded in scaring old people to death but if I were her, I would hardly stand on that as an accomplishment.

Her fan base - and indeed many on the right - applauded her fear mongering because they believe it slowed down the legislative process and got conservatives back in the game. I believe they are overstating her influence as there were other factors, including senior citizens both Democrat and Republican who were already up in arms over the proposed Medicare cuts who showed up in droves at town hall meetings and voiced their concerns. In effect, Palin may have simply tossed some nitro on an already volatile situation.

And this is the kind of leader these jamokes want?

What Daniel Larison and others refer to as her “psuedo-populism” appears to highlight her very “ordinariness” and “just folks” personae. The trouble with this as I see it is that there is an undercurrent of anti-intellectualism that undergirds her anti-establishmentarian shtick. She has made her shallow, depthless understanding of the world into a badge of honor, and indeed, her supporters push the idea that this is a positive good, that having a president as unversed in nuance as they are of policy and programs would be kind of neat. Sure would be a switch from all those brainy establishment elitists who don’t want to roll back the New Deal and Great Society, making this country into a true conservative paradise.

This is not to say that Palin is stupid. She’s intellectually lazy. I wouldn’t necessarily call her incurious in a George Bush sort of way but neither would I refer to her as possessing the innate intelligence of a Ronald Reagan who actually did change the narrative about himself. Reagan had an active, curious mind and the good sense to reach out to experts who educated him, as well as filling in knowledge gaps by reading voraciously. Palin does not seem to have that spark, that drive, that hunger for knowledge that anyone as ill informed as she admits herself to be should possess. Therefore, I hold no hope that she can transform herself into a reasonably well informed politician.

You can see where this piece has been going. No, I don’t think Palin can alter the narrative about herself in time for 2012, and I think it improbable that she will ever be able to rise above the level in American politics as a curiosity, a side show -grist for the conservative base who, if they get their wish and nominate her in 2012, will find that the political baggage she carries along with her determined ignorance will lead to a Reaganesque landslide for Obama.

In order for her to flip her position with the electorate, she has to want to change the reasons they hold such a low opinion of her - alter their perceptions by addressing their concerns about her. Unless and until I see that happening, the chances are good that she won’t even be able to win the GOP nomination much less the general election.

If America were an individual, she would long since have experienced an intervention where a trip to a competent psychiatrist would have been highly recommended.

Maybe our good friends France, Germany, and Great Britain could step in and gently make us confront our schizophrenia, pointing us toward the psychological help we need. I hear Russia is reasonable as far as hourly rates but Iran’s shock therapy might be just what the doctor ordered.

On one level, the debate in America over national health care is a political tussle. The mud wrestling, eye gouging, and hair pulling that is going on between the two sides can be seen in the context of many of our more contentious debates over issues like race, war and peace, or gay marriage.

But on another level - and I am not trying to be melodramatic - this is a fight over the soul of America. Perhaps all big political battles have this element lurking underneath the debate, but national health insurance, far more than any previous political scrum, holds the potential to change America in ways that even the most die hard proponents of the bill can’t imagine.

I have written often that change is what America is all about; that we stand still for nothing or nobody and that we either adapt to change and prosper or refuse to accept it and wither away. This process has always been affected by conservatism and it’s notion that there has to be some elements in our society that are worthy of handing down to the next generation, that change must be orderly, channeled, and that it fits in the framework laid out at our founding. In this way, the vast majority of Americans come to accept the change peacefully.

Why then the resistance to national health care? It isn’t just “tea baggers,” I would say to my liberal friends. There is genuine distress over this issue among at least 1/2 the population - probably more. Dismissing these concerns in a political context where opponents of reform are caricatured as (take your pick) racists, heartless monsters, or wildly out of touch “angry white men,” may be unavoidable, but I wonder if you realize that most opponents of national health care take issue with those cartoonish criticisms.

At bottom, most Americans really do see this issue as a question of what kind of country we should be. The latest Gallup poll reveals that there is great uneasiness over what the Democrats are trying to ram through:

More Americans now say it is not the federal government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage (50%) than say it is (47%). This is a first since Gallup began tracking this question, and a significant shift from as recently as three years ago, when two-thirds said ensuring healthcare coverage was the government’s responsibility.

Gallup has asked this question each November since 2001 as part of the Gallup Poll Social Series, and most recently in its Nov. 5-8 Health and Healthcare survey. There have been some fluctuations from year to year, but this year marks the first time in the history of this trend that less than half of Americans say ensuring healthcare coverage for all is the federal government’s responsibility.

The high point for the “government responsibility” viewpoint occurred in 2006, when 69% of Americans agreed. In 2008, this percentage fell to 54%, its previous low reading. This year, in the midst of robust debate on a potentially imminent healthcare reform law, the percentage of Americans agreeing that it is the government’s responsibility to make sure everyone has health insurance has fallen even further, by seven points, to 47%. Half of Americans now say this is not the government’s responsibility.

I would hazard a guess and say that all the while that national health care was an abstract idea, it enjoyed broad support. But now that we’re getting close to actually realizing that goal, people are getting cold feet. And the reason goes to the heart of defining what this country is all about.

Whither government in America, ask the people? How much should we allow it to do for us without losing something essential that makes us who we are? Are we really all that different of a people from everyone else on the planet? Is there an identifiable “American character” that sets us apart?

Our ancestors certainly thought so. Alexis de Tocqueville agreed. Indeed, it may be out of fashion to talk about the basis of our Constitution, but if we ever forget the idea that all power flows from the consent of the governed and not the other way around, we are doomed to suffer a significant loss of personal freedom simply because government can do pretty much whatever it chooses to do unless the people withhold their consent. There hasn’t been a lot of that these last 40 years and government’s ravenous appetite to do what all governments, once created, and regardless of who is in charge, seek to do - control - has gotten out of hand.

This despite the best of intentions of government’s major cheerleaders, and their belief that society can be perfected with the application of the principles of social science; seek out root causes of society’s problems and address them.

In their eagerness to improve the lot of the American citizen, a government has been created that stopped asking permission and now simply runs roughshod over the very idea of “consent of the governed.” Perhaps American society has become too complex for government to stop its manifest destiny to control, influence, and otherwise interfere in our lives. It certainly seems that way when looking at national health care. And those Gallup numbers reflect that notion. No one understands what’s in the bill. All they know is that, for the moment, it massively increases the role of government in people’s daily lives.

I liken it to the very first draft initiated by President Lincoln during the Civil War. The riots that took place in New York City and elsewhere, along with the general unease with the very idea of conscription demanded by Washington was a symptom of something much bigger; the idea that the national government, for the very first time in American history, could reach out and tap the ordinary citizen on the shoulder. Prior to that, the only contact that most people had with Washington was through the Post Office. The draft (and other Civil War era initiatives like nationalizing currency) went against the ideal people held in their imaginations of what kind of country America was.

I think those Gallup numbers reflect a similar unease. And here is where the real schizophrenia of the American people is demonstrated.

People actually want health care reform. They want a public option. They want health insurance to be cheaper and available to all. And they don’t think people should be denied insurance just because they have a pre-existing condition that insurance companies say makes them ineligible. Every poll taken confirms these facts. We talk a good game with regard to self-reliance, individual liberty, and being true to our Founding principles. But when it comes right down to it, the majority of us want government to relieve our burdens and make our lives easier.

It may make us less free, but many of us are willing to trade that freedom for a little security.

You can argue that we’re not losing anything by having government eventually taking over 1/6 of the American economy, but that is nonsense. We are about to hand government an enormous amount of power along with the ability to control our lives in ways that can only dimly be glimpsed at this point. If you think this a positive good, fine. But please do not insult our intelligence by claiming that national health care will be so much better because we will get rid of evil insurance companies, ride herd on Big Pharma, or stick it to those rich doctors and hospitals.

I imagine despite the unease that people feel over health care reform, we will eventually come around to accept it if it passes. And we will continue to fool ourselves that the version of America many of us hold in our heads that celebrates the freedom and individualism that marked roughly the first 150 years of the American experiment is still a viable model to define who we are.

But eventually, that disconnect between who we are and who we think we are will have to be confronted. What will replace it? I haven’t a clue.

Maybe we can ask Spain for a second opinion.

We all like things to be simple. This is probably due to an evolutionary quirk that rewarded simpleminded hominids who didn’t expend the enormous energy in calories that would have required us to think hard about something. The brain eats up about 40% of our caloric intake so it makes sense that those early pre-homo sapiens would have been natural Clintonites and “kept things simple, stupid.”

The way everyone is furiously writing about the Fort Hood shootings - specifically why this painfully obvious jihadist was allowed to stay in the army - verifies that hypothesis.

It’s really quite simple, you see. The American government and the military are lousy with PC and we paid for our timidity in the face of evil with the lives of 14 brave soldiers.

Or, an equally simple explanation is that war and cruelty to Muslims drove Hasan over the edge so of course he snapped. That and the prospect that he was going to be sent to Iraq.

For the fringes, it’s even easier; the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim and, on the other side, it really is America’s fault that Hasan “went Muslim.”

You can box, wrap, and tie up in a bow explanations given by both right and left for why the Fort Hood attack occurred. They are that pat, that logical, that simple - so easy to understand in the context of ideology and partisanship that going beyond and digging a little deeper is discouraged because it might complicate things.

I am not satisfied by these explanations and you shouldn’t be either. There is a germ of truth in the explanations offered by both sides, but I think large gaps need to be filled in to prevent us from making Hasan a cartoonish representation of the Evil Muslim, or blameless victim.

There is history to consider, for instance. The 9/11 attacks placed the American government - indeed all Americans - in a bind; how do we fight an ideology animated by religious fanaticism without condemning hundreds of millions of believers who are peaceful adherents to that same religion to guilt by association?

We failed to make this distinction in World War II with the Japanese to our eternal shame. You simply cannot tar an entire group - ethnic, racial, religious, or even those of a certain sexual orientation - with the sins, no matter how grievous, of a few. To do so is to toss the very idea of American exceptionalism out the window.

This does not mean that you must totally sacrifice security in order to avoid the conundrum. The Hasan case clearly proves that. This is a fellow that dozens of people knew did not belong in the United States Army due to his radical, treasonous statements. At this point, we don’t know why no one turned him in, or if they did, why nothing was done. It is a distinct possibility that more latitude has been given Muslims in the military with regard to their views than is granted others, but there is no direct evidence that this is so. It makes sense that this is the case, but lacking facts, it is still rank speculation.

It is also speculation that no one turned him in because they feared PC retribution. What Hasan did is so far beyond the pale of rationality that most who heard him spout no doubt believed him chillingly odd but not a real threat. I think that would be the reaction of most of us if we had encountered Hasan in our everyday lives. We get the same kind of reaction from friends and neighbors of serial killers, despite warning signs that we never pick up on. It may very well be that Hasan’s acquaintances in the army did indeed fear the consequences of turning him in. But we don’t have a clue so why the certainty in such speculation?

Not wanting a repeat of the Japanese experience in World War II is not political correctness. But perhaps the way our government implemented policies to avoid that historical deja vu will be seen as having gone too far. Clearly, the Hasan case cries out for a thorough review by the military of its policies. But I suspect it wasn’t a policy failure that led to Hasan’s continued association with the Army but rather a failure of imagination on the part of his co-workers and friends who either fooled themselves into believing he wasn’t a killer, or dismissed his treasonous utterances as someone “just letting off steam.” The prospect that he would pick up guns and kill fellow soldiers was so far beyond the pale of  imagination that those who knew of his views and heard his bloodcurdling threats never put two and two together, never made the psychic connection, between thought and act.

Does this mean that it was, in fact, political correctness that was involved in the “failure of imagination?” I can hear many of you who subscribe to this theory telling yourself that you never would have made that mistake, that because you are PC free, you would have reported Hasan immediately.

I congratulate you on your perspicaciousness. But if you worked with someone everyday for years and the change was gradual, I question whether in fact, such would be the case. And for those, like the seminar participants at Walter Reed who heard Hasan in all his jihad glory, the failure of imagination would have been even more applicable given their unfamiliarity with the terrorist.

Hindsight allows us to read into Hasan’s jihad anything that fits our preconceived notions of political correctness or victimhood. But for all of us, the conundrum remains. Bending too far toward PC is a recipe for disaster. Leaning toward treating every Muslim as a potential threat is equally distasteful and un-American. Finding the middle ground would seem to be impossible given the way this incident has now become a war between the ideologies.

But find it we must. Is there a way to satisfy our security needs while refraining from engaging in emotionally satisfying Muslim bashing or ignoring the eventualities posed by radical, fundamental Islamism that led to Hasan’s rampage?

Not quite as easy to explain now, is it?

Interesting reactions from left and right to the passage in the House of health care reform.

A bill nobody has read, that contains nobody knows what, that no one has a clue of what kind of impact it will have on the current health care system, with a cost known only to God, has been passed with no formal hearings, extraordinarily limited debate, and in a totally partisan manner (minus one Republican who doesn’t have a prayer in 2010).

That’s the “reality” I would say to my friends in the reality based community. Can you argue with any of those points above? Only if you spin so hard you are in danger of flying off into orbit.

If we had a rational government, any one of those realities would have derailed health care reform long ago. But rationality has left the building, as has common sense, proportionality, wisdom, and that fine old conservative virtue, prudence.

National Health Care Reform represents a new way of governing; the blind, leading the deaf and dumb, toward an unknowable future - driving the engine of government at full speed, and without any brakes. Can’t see that break in the tracks up ahead? Ooops! My bad. We’ll pick up the pieces later.

Of course, this is only the first step. Something approximating the House bill is going to have to pass the senate - by no means a foregone conclusion, but made more likely by last night’s vote. And the conference committee to reconcile the two versions while hanging on to enough votes in both houses for passage will be something akin to trying to put a round peg in a fractal hole.

But the momentum appears to favor getting something passed before the end of the year. If the House vote proved anything, it is that the Democrats are fully capable of coming up with solutions that will allow their huge majorities to win the day regardless of the issues. They have proven adept at papering over their differences, finessing the insoluble, and coming up with imaginative gimmicks to make national health care reform a reality.

The question then arises; where to, conservatism?

There has been more than one liberal pundit who has speculated that the passage of national health care reform would mean the death of conservatism. Holy Jesus! If communism couldn’t be killed by it’s massive internal contradictions, I hardly think conservatism is in any danger of going the way of the Dodo bird because national health insurance has become a reality.

But perhaps the chocks will be pulled out from underneath the kind of “small government” conservatism that believes rolling back the Great Society, the New Deal, and taking America back to a fiercely literal interpretation of the Constitution, is the path that conservatism should follow.

I put “small government” in quotes because the reality is that most who adhere to that brand of conservatism are actually proponents of “no government” conservatism. All conservatives look in askance at the welfare state. But there is a difference in seeking to destroy it willy nilly and substitute a pre-Constitutional environment more in keeping with the Articles of Confederation, than in drastically reforming both the programs and ideology that undergirds the culture of dependency that has taken control of government. But the “no government” conservatives will become even more irrelevant now that we are on the road to nationalized health care. Government as the “enemy” may still be a potent call to arms for these conservatives, but their impact on actual public policy will be close to zero.

If national health care becomes a reality, history tells us that it will never be repealed, that one sixth of the American economy will be permanently controlled by Washington. There will be successful efforts to play around at the margins, bringing efficiencies and changing some of the more odorous aspects of what is to come. But politicians have never taken away an entitlement in history, and I am extremely skeptical that it can be done in this case.

Once the independent health insurance industry is gone, how to you get it back? How do you reconstitute a private health care system? The answer is you can’t. Once national health care has had its way with the system and we see single payer insurance, and a health care bureaucracy that dictates treatments, costs, eligibility, as well as rationing what care is left, it will be impossible to ditch that system in favor of a market based, private entity. It is much easier for government to destroy private industry than it is for government to actually create a free market for health care. The very act of government creation would, by definition, not allow the market to determine the parameters of its operation.

So, do conservatives deal with this reality and work to affect it, or do they cling to the irrational belief that they can turn the world upside down, repeal a middle class entitlement, and resurrect an entire industry? I believe that, along with other entitlements, conservative principles can be applied to governance so that it’s costs are kept from rising too quickly, while choices can be broadened. In short, if there must be national health care, conservatives can run it far better than liberals.

Not very satisfactory but real world options are rarely as palatable as those we imagine when clinging to dreams of Jeffersonian (or Randian) utopias. John Galt may be a folk hero, but even he is going to need to see a doctor at some point. So, from where I’m sitting, (given the strong probability that national health care will be a reality by the end of the year) you can either work to radically improve what the Democrats have so carelessly tossed into the people’s laps, or you can continue thinking that it is possible to create a government that doesn’t do much except kill terrorists and give out tax break like pieces of candy corn on Halloween night.

That’s an exaggeration, of course. But my purpose - groping, feeling my way in the dark though it seems - is to think about what conservatism means facing this new reality. Those who wish to continue living in a fantasy world where “no government” or “small government” (rather than “smaller government”) dominates, I congratulate you on your efforts. It is more than the rest of us who wish to advance the cause of conservatism in the real world are capable.

I’m a little bemused this morning reading lefty blogs who are chortling over Doug Hoffman’s defeat last night. Isn’t that sort of like someone who’s been thrown in a sh*t pile and accidentally discovering a brass ring?

It isn’t just the raw results that should give Democrats a cold chill. The internals of the exit polls reveal several key demographic groups moving strongly back to the GOP including ex-urban whites, as well as suburban women. If that trend continues - and at the moment, that’s a big “if” - the GOP is back in the national ball game with several states that were trending blue like Virginia inching away from the Democrats and returning home.

Of course, the low turnout in these elections make it difficult to really pronounce such trends as harbingers of victory for Republicans in 2010. But moderates and Blue Dogs on the Hill think they’re real enough, which should, at the very least, complicate matters for Nancy Pelosi as she moves the health care reform bill to the floor. I don’t think the results changed anyone’s vote - and that’s the problem for Pelosi. She’s still short a couple of dozen votes for passage of a bill with a strong public option and what happened last night will just make her job of arm twisting Blue Dogs to jump on board that much more difficult.

Of all the results that came in last night, Republicans can take the most heart from the Virginia governor’s race. It’s not that McDonnell won - that was expected. But his margin of victory was astonishing considering that Obama took the state by 7% last November. Deeds finished 12 points behind Obama’s total and the other two statewide races saw similar massacres of the Democratic candidates. Again, it is perhaps folly to read too much into this race, but if you were to ask Axelrod (and if you were able to get an honest response from him), I think he would say that they were most disappointed in what happened statewide in Virginia.

New Jersey is an entirely different narrative. It is pretty clear that Obama’s presidency was a non-player in people’s decision for whom to vote. The issue was a scumbag governor - period - and the clear desire of New Jerseians to kick the bum out.

Nate Silver:

Obama approval was actually pretty strong in New Jersey, at 57 percent, but 27 percent of those who approved of Obama nevertheless voted for someone other than Corzine. This one really does appear to be mostly about Corzine being an unappealing candidate, as the Democrats look like they’ll lose just one or two seats in the state legislature in Trenton. Corzine compounded his problems by staying negative until the bitter end of the campaign rather than rounding out his portfolio after having closed the margin with Christie.

That’s pretty convincing evidence that, at least in the New Jersey governor’s race, “all politics are local” prevailed.

Not so in NY23. I am very disappointed that Doug Hoffman lost. As in any vote, it was a variety of factors that did Hoffman in. Was he “too conservative?” I doubt that. Hoffman wasn’t a bomb thrower nor is he a radical rightie. He was a nice little “gray man” as I called him yesterday, who didn’t impress the locals with his knowledge of local issues nor set them on fire with his personality. And I think the enthusiasm felt for him by national conservatives never translated into support on the ground in the district.

The Dede Factor probably had something to do with Hoffman’s loss. How much is hard to say. And don’t forget the machinations of the national GOP and state party bigwigs who foisted Scozzafava on the district in the first place. If Hoffman hadn’t been on the ballot, I am not convinced she would have won anyway. Owens centrism contrasted badly for the GOP with Scozzafava’s center left voting record as well as her open embrace of such positions as pro-choice and pro-gay marriage. That would have kept many conservatives at home last night watching “V” rather than heading to the polls to vote for the likes of Scozzafava. The notion that she would have won if Hoffman had stayed off the ballot is just not supportable by what we know.

From some New York commenters and correspondents, I am told that redistricting will probably make this a safe Democratic enclave by the 2010 race. We will see about that. It could be that come the mid terms, very few seats in the country would be “safe” for Democrats unless the unemployment rate comes down significantly, and a way is found to lower the deficit. In case you didn’t hear, voters are indeed angry. They appear angry at both parties, but Democrats come in for the lion’s share of the blame simply by virtue of them being the “ins” at the present time.

If I were a Democrat, I would be relieved that the night wasn’t as bad as it could have been. As a nominal Republican, I am pleased but very cautious. I see nothing from those results that shows me the voter is ready to embrace the GOP as an alternative to Obama and the Democrats. I think there was a lot of “holding of noses” by people in Virginia and New Jersey when going into the polling booth. I sense little enthusiasm for choosing Republicans over Democrats - something that can be changed only if the lessons from last night sink in with the mossbacks currently in charge of the party in Washington.

What are those lessons? Listen to conservatives. Not the ones calling for a purge of incumbents that don’t measure up to some idiotic notion of ideological purity. That way leads to madness and defeat:

But their success in Tuesday’s upstate New York special election, where grass-roots efforts pushed GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava to drop out of the race and helped Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman surge into the lead on the eve of Election Day, has generated more money and enthusiasm than organizers ever imagined.

Activists predict a wave that could roll from California to Kentucky to New Hampshire and that could leave even some GOP incumbents — Utah Sen. Bob Bennett is one — facing unexpectedly fierce challenges from their right flank.

“I would say it’s the tip of the spear,” said Dick Armey, the former GOP House majority leader who now serves as chairman of FreedomWorks, an organization that has been closely aligned with the tea party movement. “We are the biggest source of energy in American politics today.”

“What you’re going to see,” said Armey, “is moderates and conservatives across the country in primaries.”

Dick Armey is a fool. He knows full well that incumbents challenged in a primary are much more vulnerable to defeat in the general election than those who run virtually unopposed. And why the challenge? Does the member have ethics problems? If so, then by all means throw the rascal out.

The idea that an incumbent has “betrayed conservative principles” might be cause for removal but who are these national conservatives that they think they can dictate to locals and define “conservatism” for them? They may have their own ideas on how conservative their member is and to have someone else tell them they’re full of it - especially someone from outside the state or district - is a real recipe for a civil war.

I am coming around to the notion that the GOP has to blow their opportunity in both 2010 and 2012 for anything to change. Losing when you should have had a slam dunk win (as I think 2010 should be) might wake up a few people who need a kick in the ass. And that includes throwing out the deadwood in Washington as well as putting the radical righties in their place. Both groups are dragging the GOP down and, like a drunk who has hit rock bottom, will only reform when the alternative is more unpalatable.

UPDATE

Pete Wehner points to something I hadn’t considered:

Among the important by-products of this election is that it will encourage many impressive and capable Republicans from around the country to become candidates. They now believe, with justification, that 2010 looks to be a very good year for the GOP. If an individual ever wanted to toss his hat into the ring, this is the time to do it.

I wrote in both 2006 and 2008 about the way the Democrats far outperformed the GOP in candidate recruitment, and how that factor was one of the primary reasons for their success. There are several factors that go into recruiting a good candidate including having a strong base of support in some part of the district, some nominal name recognition, and, as always, an ability to self finance is seen as a huge plus.

I am willing to bet that Hoffman was not the best conservative candidate available in NY23, although not knowing anything about the district I can’t say for sure. But if the GOP can attract some up and comers, as well as a few old political hands who are known in the district who might be encouraged by what happened last night, more power to them.

There is no way to adequately explain how royally delicious the irony that can be found in this post by Jon Walker at Firedoglake.

To those of us on both sides who look in askance at the excessively ideological fringes of both right and left, the echo that can be heard in Mr. Walker’s piece from conservatives is eerie:

Bill Owens is a conservative Democrat. He is arguably more conservative than the official Republican candidate was (Dede Scozzafava dropped out over the weekend). For example, his opposition to the public option puts him not only far to the right of the bulk of the Democratic party, but significantly to the right of the majority of Americans. He was selected because he fit the Rahm Emanuel philosophy that the only way for Democrats to win right-leaning districts is with conservative Democratic candidates.

The theory is that a center-right Democrat will win the entire Democratic base, most of the independents, and a few of the more liberal Republicans. That theory is getting blown out of the water in NY-23rd. Bill Owens’s remaining competition is the ultra-rightwing Conservative party candidate Doug Hoffman. The vast majority of the district should be ideologically much closer Owens than Hoffman, yet Hoffman is leading in the polls.

If Hoffman wins it will be a big loss for the misguided ideal among some Democrats that the only way to win right-leaning districts is by diligently staking out bland center-right positions. Having a candidate that seems “real” and can really fire up the base is very important. People often vote because they feel elected officials are ignoring them and they want to send a message. Right now, there is a real populist rage out there directed at Washington in general.

Yep - even though the “vast majority” in the district should be supporting Owens because they are closer to his more moderate ideology, somehow, someone is playing a trick! Hoffman is leading in the polls? How is that possible?

Well, maybe the district is closer to Hoffman in their ideology than Owens. But that’s not possible because Hoffman is a radical, far right, loony tunes, ass-upside-down drooling righty.

Or, Mr. Walker has a hole in his head and his cranial matter has been leaking lo these many years.

Now read this from Mac Ranger:

The Republican Party wins ONLY when Conservatism is it’s core. Willy-Nilly RINOISM got us shalacked in 2006 and 2008. Trying to out liberal the liberals, quasi-Republicans made deals with the devil and got burned in the process.

Is that too remarkable for words? One state, two state, red state, blue state - it doesn’t matter. Those in thrall to ideology see things exactly the same only coming at the issue from opposite ends of the spectrum.

Politico had this piece of cheery news today; the True Blue Conservative Brigade will fan out across the country and attack those they see as too “moderate” to be Republicans - even incumbents!

Activists contend that the only way back to majority status is to embrace the conservative principles that the party jettisoned during the past decades once it became too enamored of power. To them, the issue is less about ideological purity than about the compromises they see the party’s Washington establishment making and what they contend is a lack of support for conservative candidates who are deemed unelectable by GOP solons.

“New York 23, on some scale, is the first battle of a larger internal Republican debate over how to define the party,” said former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, a conservative who is challenging Crist for the Senate nomination. “They want us to vote for their candidates, but they don’t want us to run for office.”

Imagine the cheering going on at the DNC upon reading this. Millions and millions of Republican dollars being spent to kill each other off. Brilliant! And then bloodied and nearly broken, some poor senator or congressman goes into a general election nearly broke and facing a well funded, attractive Democratic challenger. The result? Pelosi and Reid laugh all the way to January and the swearing in of even bigger Democratic majorities.

As I’ve repeatedly said, the circumstances in NY23 are unique and serve the valuable purpose of telling those mossbacks in Washington to recruit good conservatives who will remain that way once they get to Washington. But sharpening the long knives for incumbents? To what purpose? It’s not a question of “victory at all costs” but rather “Who’s side are you really on when these actions will help only the Democrats?”

Now Mr. Walker does not go so far as to advocate the targeting of Blue Dogs although that has been suggested numerous times on liberal blogs. But I’m afraid he is dead wrong about Doug Hoffman - who apparently committed the cardinal sin of supporting Glenn Beck’s “9 Principles and 12 Values” which include such radically right wing subversive notions as “1) America is Good.” And for good measure, Mr. Hoffman informed Glenn Beck on his show that he was his “mentor” - a very polite response from an affable, polite man.

Actually, Hoffman is a nice, pleasant, gray little man who’s about as radical as a chicken breast, and a lot less loony than some of his national supporters who want to imbue the nondescript Mr. Hoffman with qualities that would have made George Washington blush. I like the fellow - especially the fact that he is an accountant. Just think of a Congress full of accountants instead of lawyers.

Now that’s a conservatism I would pledge my undying devotion.

But note the chilling similarity in the thought processes between Mac Ranger and Jon Walker. The “key to victory” is ideological purity. Never mind that the district had little interest in voting for Scozzafava once they found out she was not much of a Republican - even for a reasonably moderate conservative district like NY23. And the voters up there are apparently ready to reject a moderately left Democrat like Owens.

Hoffman probably wins because he got a boost from conservative activists who trashed Scozzafava (sometimes unfairly. As I said in this post, she is far from being a “radical leftist”), and propelled the GOP candidate to the front by dint of sheer enthusiasm and successfully portraying him as the only “real” Republican in the race.

If he loses? Well then it’s back to the drawing board. Maybe they’ll be able to find someone even more conservative than Hoffman because, after all, the reason he will lose is because he “just wasn’t conservative enough.”

Unless the GOP is very, very careful, that may be an epithet on the tombstone of many an incumbent when all is said and done in 2010.

What is it that possesses certain conservatives to fool themselves so spectacularly into believing that they can create a majority out of a minority?

That kind of alchemy hasn’t been seen since Nostradamus tried to turn lead into gold. In the case of far right conservatives who think that they can turn their meager numbers into a ruling majority all by themselves, the disconnect from reality would normally call for an intervention - except they reject anything from anybody who doesn’t agree with them 100%. Nor can they seem to grasp complex political realities that would complicate their simplistic, ignorant view that their idea of what constitutes a “conservative” reigns supreme all across the land.

The recent Gallup poll showing that 40% of Americans see themselves as “conservative” was leapt upon by these morons as “proof” that their brand of anarcho-conservatism dominates the political landscape. Would that it were true. The fact that there are a dozen different definitions of “conservative” depending on where you live doesn’t seem to penetrate. And the pogrom they wish to carry out against “moderates” who agree with them on 90% of the issues they hold dear but fail their ever more spastic “litmus tests” guarantees Democratic dominance for the foreseeable future.

Why the name calling? Why the harsh, unyielding language? Because I too, believe this country is in enormous trouble. But the way the base is going about trying to overcome the political deficit that George Bush and his cronies placed the Republican party will only lead to permanent minority status for conservatives. In truth, the gloating being done on the far right over the ravaging of Scozzafava has led to a belief that the template used to stick it to the establishment in NY23 can be grafted on to other districts where “RINO’s” are running - GOP incumbents be damned.

The RNC, the NRCC, and other conservatives like Newt Gingrich erred in trying to foist a liberal Republican onto the people of the 23rd congressional district. On this, we can all agree. But when I read bullsh*t like this, a cold chill goes up my spine:

This showed just how bad things have become. The Republican Party has been hijacked. Conservatives have been driven underground by the RINOs and the DIABLOs (Democrats in all but label only). This leftish creep was insidious until we got clubbed over the head when the ultra liberal media picked our presidential candidate — the Gang of 14 tool John McCain.

We all sucked it up. We went along. We embraced the ticket in the spirit of AROO — (any Republican over Obama) — and we held our noses until Sarah Palin came along. Ah, just a spoonful of Sarah helped the medicine go down.

But now it’s time to clean house. Newt and his ilk will be relegated to the dustbin of history, and deservedly so. Enough with the old, in with the true!

A couple of hundred thousand conservatives fill up the mall on September 12 and Geller thinks conservatives have been “driven underground?” What kind of utter nonsense is that? Geller is a full throated member of the Anti-Reason Conservatives - those who reject reality in favor of persecution complexes, wildly exaggerated hyperbole, and a frightening need for vengeance against their imagined “enemies” - despite the fact that those imagined foes agree with them on virtually everything they think they stand for.

The idea that Newt Gingrich should be “relegated to the dustbin of history” - a not uncommon sentiment I’ve read over the past week - demonstrates a determined refusal to objectively analyze the political realities of the unique situation in NY23 and deliberately remain ignorant of the consequences that would have accrued if the Republican party had failed to support the Republican candidate in the district.

A good case can be made that Gingrich especially could have kept his mouth shut about conservatives rightly gravitating to Hoffman. His petulance with national conservatives who sought to replace the liberal Scozzafava with a more palatable choice was uncalled for and further demonstrates his unfitness for the presidency.

But kick him out of the party? Marginalize one of the only public intellectuals on the right who can speak to a broad cross section of America with authority and credibility? Perhaps that’s Newt’s real problem; the anti-intellectualism on the far right that sees any independent thinking deviating from their worldview as suspect. Or perhaps it’s just the idea that Gingrich, through his years of service to the conservative and Republican causes, has become a part of the establishment and hence, a target.

Who do these louts think the party establishment should have supported in NY23? There would have been no real difference if the DC Republicans had supported Hoffman or the Democrat Owens over Scozzafava. The result would have been exactly the same; the national party spitting in the face of local Republican organizations who chose Scozzafava - regardless of her admitted liberalism and regardless of whether her candidacy was rammed through by powerful New York state GOP bigwigs.

The pragmatism demonstrated by the national Republicans in giving Scozzafava the support they felt necessary for her to win is lost on the ideologues who can’t seem to wrap their heads around the idea that majorities are crafted by addition, not subtraction. Scozzafava would have been a beastly congresswoman, as unreliable a Republican vote on the issues as could be imagined. But Congress is governed as much by procedure as it is ideas, and when the whip is cracked by the leadership, she probably would have been with the party most of the time.

In effect, the base is criticizing the Republican establishment for acting like a political party and not a college debating society. The advantage of belonging to the latter is that you can pick and choose members based on whatever subjective criteria you wish. Don’t like the cut of a man’s suit or women with red hair? Fine. But don’t apply your ridiculous litmus tests to a political party trying to fashion a majority.

If you wish to deny membership into your ever shrinking club of “true” conservatives to those who you think don’t live up to your narrow, parochial, rigid definition, that is your problem. But if you care one whit about the United States of America, you would swallow your excessively ideological outlook on politics, take off the blinders, and realize that a party made up of lockstep righties who think like you is not only impossible, but the effort to realize that goal would be monumentally stupid.

The childish view that most of the base has of what it takes to turn politics into a governing majority would be amusing if they weren’t so obstructive in realizing that goal for the GOP. And even if Hoffman goes down to defeat, the wrong lessons - as usual - will be drawn from the effort to elect him. Sending the establishment a message to work harder to find and support good conservative candidates who can win in different regions of the country is one thing. That is an effort worth making, and I applaud activists who are seeking to send that message to the powers that be.

But sending the message to not only seek out conservatives for office but also replace those who fall short of being “true” conservatives in the estimation of the base is loony. It is this kind of gunslinging that guarantees a Democratic majority. It would be a huge waste of resources to attempt such madness. But that is the goal of many in the base who can’t stand the thought of “moderates” calling themselves “Republican.”

I believe in party reform. I believe the GOP should be a friendly place for conservatives - however they define that label. I believe that good conservatives should be running the Republican party and the conservative movement.

But above all of that, I believe in victory. And if that is not paramount in your mind, then you might as well switch parties and vote for the Democrat.

WHAT ANTI-REASON CONSERVATIVES? WHERE?

Bill Quick:

All you need to do to keep track of the thinking in the credentialist, careerist (yes, that describes Moran to a tee - he’s been trolling for some sort of DC establishment GOP job for, like, ever) nuthouse wing of the faux GOP, is read Rick Moran - or as much of him as you can stand to swallow without retching.

I wouldn’t drum anybody out of the party over abortion (though it isn’t my issue) or gay rights, (which I’ve supported for ages), but I would like to see these phony Republicans and fake conservatives remove themselves to the party that mirrors their views.

As to the charge that I want a job in DC - been there, done that and have absolutely no desire to go back. Obviously, Mr. Slowwitted believes DC is the destination of choice for people who wish to make a living writing about politics. For a fellow who never tires of telling us (it’s on his blog’s masthead) that he coined the term “blogosphere,” he seems not to have heard of the internet. This marvelous invention makes working from the comfortable confines of my office here in Streator, Illinois (”Smack dab in the middle of Middle America”) for companies located in California a pleasant reality.

No matter. Quick, like most of the excessively ideological, rabid right, didn’t bother to read what I wrote and simply spouted that I was horrified at the prospects of “conservatives finally asserting themselves in the party that ostensibly claims to represent them.” That must have been in the bits I edited out because I don’t see me writing that anywhere in this particular post, nor do I agree with that notion generally. In fact, lo and behold, there is this:

Sending the establishment a message to work harder to find and support good conservative candidates who can win in different regions of the country is one thing. That is an effort worth making, and I applaud activists who are seeking to send that message to the powers that be.

I dunno, Bill. Sounds like I approve of “conservatives asserting themselves,” but what the fu*k do I know? I’m only the writer.

Quick suggests I change the name of my site. Before I do that, perhaps he should change his to “Idiot Child Pundit” since he gibbers like a two year old without making any sense about anything.

My latest is up at Pajamas Media about the conservative insurgency in NY23 that appears about ready to succeed in handing Doug Hoffman an unexpected victory.

A sample:

What has happened in NY-23 is that the newly empowered conservative base decided the national party had gone a candidate too far in choosing liberal Republican Scozzafava to represent them and decided on their own to adopt third-party candidate Doug Hoffman, while telling the GOP establishment to take a hike.

Why the national party believed this colorless career politician who supports gay marriage and would have voted for the stimulus bill represented Republican principles, much less conservative ones, will remain a mystery. Dan Riehl has uncovered some information that former GOP Congressman Tom Reynolds may have played a large role in choosing Scozzafava, but that only muddies the waters even further. Didn’t those numbskulls at the RNC and the NRCC even bother to check this woman’s credentials before giving her stacks of cash donated by good conservatives?

It may be understandable that they would choose a pro-choice woman to run in New York state, although the man the special election is replacing who served eight terms representing that district, John McHugh, was pro-life down the line. But pro-gay marriage? Where did that come from? And it should go without saying that Scozzafava’s support for the stimulus bill would have made her a pariah in the House Republican caucus since no other GOP congressman supported it.

All of this was known to the national party before they shepherded her choice through the selection process (rammed it through might be a better way to describe what happened). Also known to the GOP elites was the wave of discontent building beyond the beltway via the tea parties and the spectacular success of Glenn Beck, who has ridden the wave to fame and fortune.

And yet, still believing they were in total control, they proceeded as if the protests at health care town halls, the 9/12 phenomenon, and the tremendous grassroots energy those events unleashed didn’t matter. Or perhaps they believed they would be able to co-opt and use all that enthusiasm for their own purposes so they could continue with business as usual. Whatever they were thinking, they blindly allowed an old crony (Reynolds used to run the NRCC), to have his way in choosing a candidate that even Nelson Rockefeller might have had to swallow hard to support.

Hoffman, by the way, is not much more conservative than Scozzafava if you examine their positions on the issues. Dede’s problem was that she served 10 years in the Assembly and had a string of votes that she could be attacked for. But Hoffman is no wild eyed “Stalinist” as Frank Rich seems to think:

The battle for upstate New York confirms just how swiftly the right has devolved into a wacky, paranoid cult that is as eager to eat its own as it is to destroy Obama. The movement’s undisputed leaders, Palin and Beck, neither of whom has what Palin once called the “actual responsibilities” of public office, would gladly see the Republican Party die on the cross of right-wing ideological purity. Over the short term, at least, their wish could come true.

The New York fracas was ignited by the routine decision of 11 local Republican county chairmen to anoint an assemblywoman, Dede Scozzafava, as their party’s nominee for the vacant seat. The 23rd is in safe Republican territory that hasn’t sent a Democrat to Congress in decades. And Scozzafava is a mainstream conservative by New York standards; one statistical measure found her voting record slightly to the right of her fellow Republicans in the Assembly. But she has occasionally strayed from orthodoxy on social issues (abortion, same-sex marriage) and endorsed the Obama stimulus package. To the right’s Jacobins, that’s cause to send her to the guillotine.

Speaking as one who has been sent to the guillotine myself by those same Jacobians, Rich is full of it. Scozzafava was foisted on the district by NY state GOP leaders and especially former Rep. Tom Reynolds (former head of the NRCC as well) who decided one of his proteges should be the nominee. And while there is certainly a lot of anger that the establishment wanted to cram a pro-gay marriage candidate down their throat (a position not even mainstream in the Democratic party), the real rebellion in NY23 centers on the perception that despite the previous month’s activism, the party and the establishment wasn’t listening or “getting it.”

And Dede’s endorsement of Porkulus when not one single GOP congressman voted for it says volumes as well. In short, this cram down by party elites at a time when tea party activists had singlehandedly delayed Obamacare and became the only true organized resistance to the president’s agenda, smacked of disrespect by the GOP leadership who were benefiting from their activism.

I have written extensively about the dangers of this populist wave, and how it could easily become, if not as radical as Rich believes in his overactive imagination, then certainly a detriment to conservatism and GOP hopes in 2010. But the race in NY23 shows that there’s nothing for it now, the base has been empowered and the wave is on the move. My fear is that all this enthusiasm and resentment, and fear will be channeled into unproductive avenues and result in a lost opportunity in 2010.

Andrew Sullivan:

No one knows what might happen now. For the insurgents, it means a scalp they will surely use to purge the GOP of any further dissidence. But the insurgents were also backed by the establishment, including Tim Pawlenty, who’s supposed to be the reasonable center.

What we’re seeing, I suspect, is an almost classic example of a political party becoming more ideological after its defeat at the polls. in order for that ideology to win, they will also have to portray the Obama administration as so far to the left that voters have no choice but to back the Poujadists waiting in the wings. And that, of course, is what they’re doing. There is a method to the Ailes-Drudge-Cheney-Rove denialism. They create reality, remember?

From the mindset of an ideologically purist base - where a moderate Republican in New York state is a “radical leftist” - this makes sense. But for all those outside the 20 percent self-identified Republican base, it looks like a mix of a purge and a clusterfuck. If Hoffman wins, and is then embraced by the GOP establishment, you have a recipe for a real nutroots take-over. This blood in the water will bring on more and more and deadlier and deadlier sharks.

Scozzafava was no “radical leftist” as I point out here. No one who gets the endorsement of the NRA can, by any stretch of the imagination, be termed a “radical leftist.” And someone who opposes cap and trade, Obamacare, and much of the Obama agenda cannot be considered much of a leftist. Her support of card check is a natural given the number of union voters in the district which speaks more of her bowing to practical political realities rather than any deep, leftist ideological commitment.

And the danger, as I have constantly harped upon, is that the calcification of views by the base on issues will become so excessively driven by ideology and partisanship, that unless a candidate is marching in nearly 100% lockstep with them, they will be branded “Marxists” by Beck and “liberals” or “radical leftists” by everyone else.

But as I point out in my PJM piece, Andrew is wrong to conclude that this presages some kind of mass takeover by the far right. The circumstances in NY23 created a perfect storm for the bast that is very unlikely to be repeated in other congressional districts. If the base puts up primary challengers to those they consider insufficiently pure, the normal equilibrium of politics will take over and incumbency, money, and name recognition will overwhelm just about any challenge to the supremacy of the party establishment. In other words, if the conservative base thinks that NY23 is some kind of harbinger for the future, they will be royally disappointed.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t cheer them on in NY23. An establishment that gets too comfortable is no good to anyone. And the message I like being sent from this race is that putting up good, reasonable conservatives like Hoffman for office is usually better than the alternative.

I have little doubt but that my plea not to make the NY23 race a litmus test for who get’s to play in the Republican party sandbox will fall on deaf ears, but it must be made regardless.

Yes, Hoffman is by far the better candidate than hapless Scozzafava - the winner of the Margaret Sanger Award from Family Planning Advocates. This is not the worst thing about her. But accepting an award named after the second most prominent and enthusiastic proponent of eugenics in history - after Adolf Hitler - shows either a shocking ignorance of what Sanger’s views on sterilizing and giving forced abortions to “undesirables” like blacks and immigrants actually were, or a political tone deafness that should disqualify her from big time politics.

Indeed, Scozzafava’s campaign has been marked by a not ready for prime time amateurishness, that includes the uproariously funny video of her standing in front of Hoffman’s campaign headquarters holding a press conference while “Hoffman for Congress” signs were arrayed en masse in the background. That, and other clueless statements have destroyed her candidacy so that the most recent poll shows her in 3rd place.

It is a mystery why the GOP establishment in New York and Washington chose her for the race. She apparently supported the stim bill - something no other Republican in Congress did - and she supports the anti-democratic card check bill being pushed by organized labor. For whatever reason, this seemed perfectly fine to Newt Gingrich (who has defended her) as well as the NRCC who flung $1 million into her lap.

But is she conservative enough to be a Republican?

The answer to that question is why I believe that who you support in the NY23 race should not be a litmus test for establishing a baseline for who can identify themselves as a “Republican.” Is someone who supports gun rights, is against cap and trade, opposes most aspects of Obamacare (including the public option), wants to make Bush’s tax cuts permanent while supporting a repeal of the death tax, supports earmark reform, voted against the Paterson budget, and has a decidedly conservative voting record on fiscal matters worthy of being identified as a Republican?

Apparently, not if you are pro-choice and pro-gay marriage.

I will grant that anyone who would have voted for Porkulus and card check should not be supported when a legitimate, reliable conservative like Hoffman is running in the same race.

But suppose there was no Hoffman? The national GOP erred badly both in Florida and NY23 not because they backed candidates who shouldn’t be Republicans but because there were excellent conservative alternatives to Scozzafava and Crist begging for their support. But we better get used to the idea that there are going to be candidates running in many northeastern/New England districts that wouldn’t fit in at a Louisiana clambake but would feel right at home at a Maine Lobsterfest.

Yes, there should be limits to who gets to wear the GOP label. But I don’t think Scozzafava comes very close to the barrier. Gingrich is wrong to label her a good conservative. And the national party was wrong to waste a million bucks on her. But this kind of hysteria from Malkin is almost inexplicable:

If you have given to the NRCC, RNC, or Newt Gingrich under the impression that they are using the money to support conservatism, you might want to ask for your money back.

As I mentioned in my column post on the NY23 special election, the NRCC is using conservatives’ money to back a radical leftist and attack a bona fide, viable conservative candidate for Congress in a safe Republican district. Gingrich has endorsed the radical leftist.

I love Michelle Malkin. She used to be a big supporter of this blog and showed me many personal kindnesses over the years. I used to work for her as comment moderator for her blog. She is a smart, usually savvy about politics, and an independent voice on the right.

But her description of Scozzafava as a “radical leftist” is off the deep end. Yes, she has appeared on the Working Families Party ballot line in New York - no doubt as a result of her stance on gay marriage and abortion (WFP is supporting Owens the Democrat in this election). And it is true that some of that party’s financial support has come from ACORN and SEIU, although referring to the WFP as the party of ACORN is an exaggeration.

But the complicated nature of New York state politics doesn’t make that unusual nor should it necessarily disqualify her from membership in the Republican party - nor should the fact that her husband is a union organizer. Scozzafava said she would have voted to defund ACORN as a result of the exposes done by Big Government. Is that something a “radical leftist” would do?

She supports the individual’s right to bear arms. Is that a position normally taken by a “radical leftist?

She supports the Bush tax cuts and repeal of the death tax. Radical leftist?

She opposes cap and trade. Radical leftist?

Are all pro-choice and pro-gay marriage politicians “radical leftists?” There is a libertarian case to be made for both so unless you want to brand the pro-choice wing of the GOP “radical leftists” I suggest we tone down the rhetoric a bit. (Not all gay marriage advocates are radical leftists either. Dick Cheney anyone?)

It’s one thing to oppose Scozzafava because there’s a better candidate in the race. It’s something totally different to slime her as a radical leftist when she clearly is not. That is hyperbole, and a gross exaggeration. Getting on the ballot line of as many parties as possible is the way the game is played in New York - one of the few “fusion” states left where a candidate maximizes their chances of winning by garnering the endorsement of parties from across the political spectrum. It makes for some strange bedfellows at times but is hardly cause to read anyone out of either party because they do what is necessary to win the election.

And to show where this kind of madness is leading, Malkin and others have now proclaimed New Gingrich not conservative enough because he endorsed the decision of the New York country organizations who chose Scozzafava. Gingrich was wrong to do so. But does this disqualify one of the leading conservative minds in America from a position of leadership?

Apparently Malkin also believes Gingrich unworthy because he once appeared with Nancy Pelosi in a commercial about climate change, took a charter school tour with Al Sharpton, and appeared with Hillary Clinton to promote some of his pet projects. Has it now become verboten to even appear with the enemy in a public forum? Supporting reasonable legislation on emissions, school reform, and support for some kind of health care reform is hardly leftist, or radical, or even very moderate - unless one’s definition of “conservatism” is so narrow that you could drive a piece of spaghetti through it.

If Malkin and those who join her in this pogrom keep it up, the next GOP convention will be just large enough to be held in my kitchen.

I understand and even agree with the notion that candidates like Hoffman are good for the party and that the GOP establishment definitely needs a wake up call. But trying to marginalize Newt Gingrich? Referring to a moderate Republican as a “radical leftist?” This is madness and can only lead to self destruction as conservatives actively seek out and destroy those whose views on a couple of issues are at variance with their own.

Fight against the Scozzafava’s in the party if you feel you must. Deny them leadership positions, choice seats on important committees, a speaking role at conventions - do all of that if you feel that strongly about it.

But once you start the process of subtraction from the party as a result of your disagreements on very few issues, there is only one way that the GOP will end up; permanent minority status with conservatives continuing to howl in the political wilderness.

One of the few commendable parts of the Stimulus Bill was the money devoted to seeking alternative energy sources. I don’t believe it will lead to “millions of new jobs” - that’s pure politics and doesn’t take into account the millions of “old” jobs that will be lost. Experts are divided whether there will be a net gain in employment - and we won’t see any evidence of that for a couple of decades.

But the president’s emphasis on developing these technologies is spot on. And, I think to a very large degree, his approach is a sound one.

Everyone agrees we must wean ourselves from dependence on foreign oil, and eventually we must radically alter the economy in order to deal with declining oil supplies.

It isn’t really a question of drilling. The fact is, the world is partially a victim of America’s success in in applying our soft power in ways that have caused an explosion of economic activity in the third world that has resulted in massive increases in demand for oil the world over. China and India - two huge nations - are seeing big increases in their energy needs every year. Coal is only a stopgap measure for both - not only for its problems with carbon emissions but the suffocating air pollution that goes with it.

Globalization, coupled with our developmental aid over the last couple of decades, has caused a revolution in living standards. OPEC nations are at near capacity in supplying clients with oil and the price remains high. This should tell you that the demand curve is outstripping supply. And the gap is getting wider.

(The question of whether we are already at “Peak Oil” production is separate to the question of current supply. There are encouraging signs of some new finds in South America and the Caribbean, but those fields will only delay the inevitable crunch by a few years at most.)

So the quest for renewables is both necessary and immediate. And the president has come up with a plan via the stim bill that will ratchet up research and development while allowing the market to pick winners and losers.

It’s really the kind of public-private partnership that we need to see the kinds of innovative technologies that will revolutionize the way we live and change the economy in ways we can barely fathom now.

Why not let the market handle the whole thing? Ordinarily, that would be the optimum solution. But we’re talking about dollar amounts for basic research that are far beyond the capacity of any company to pay for - or generate the speed necessary to make this transition before supplies really start to pinch.

The days when a Thomas Edison could fund his own lab and turn out miraculous invention and invention are gone. While we shouldn’t entirely dismiss the work of American tinkerers, the fact is, in order to overcome the technological and engineering problems associated with making us independent of foreign oil, develop “clean coal” applications, take us to the next level in solar, wind, and car battery power, and fix our electric power grid, it will take the massive infusions of cash into research that Obama is proposing.

Oversight, as this New York Times editorial mentioned at the time of the stim bill passage, will be vitally important:

Eighty-billion dollars is still a lot of money. And the federal agencies overseeing its disbursement must provide strong regulation and firm guidance to ensure that it is spent wisely. Money invested in a modern electricity grid, for instance, will have been badly spent if it is used merely to build transmission towers to move energy from old coal-fired power plants. It will be well spent if it helps move clean energy, such as wind and solar power, from, say, Texas, to distant cities that need it.

That is just one of many provisions that will bear close watching as the money flows to states, cities and businesses.

Yes, there is some waste in the bill - including monies earmarked for AMTRAK and a dubious high speed rail project. But there is also a long overdue $11 billion in grants and $6 billion in loans to develop a “smart grid” for our electrical needs. Europeans are far ahead of us in this area and once completed, the new grid will not only make our energy use more efficient, but also provide better service to electricity consumers while keeping cost increases down.

I am also a little dubious about the $25 billion the government is spending to “weatherize” homes and retrofit government buildings to be more energy conscious. Given past history, bureaucrats always seem to find ways to redefine what “retrofit” means. Look for a lot of bells and whistles added to government buildings without much in energy savings.

That said, we should be excited about a tenfold increase in monies given for research into better car batteries (they are improving almost every year), and a tenfold increase in developing “clean coal” technologies. Of the latter, I am less excited simply because the entire coal industry is going to be decimated if cap and trade goes through in the senate. Developing a costly solution for an industry that is being shoved to the sidelines may not be the most efficient use of that money.

But the $20 billion in tax incentives to develop alternative fuels and energy sources is the key. Note that the incentives will not favor one company over another and could set off a gold rush toward energy innovation that would almost certainly hasten improvements in these technologies. For instance, we will probably discover just how viable energy produced by wind power can be when used on an industrial scale. It won’t work everywhere - just as solar power will have its limits. But the trick is to come up with the right combination that will dramatically reduce our dependence on oil.

Obviously, no plan is without its drawbacks. It will take decades to see the kind of progress that will really make a difference. Alternative energy sources currently supply less than 3% of our needs. It will take a sustained effort over many years to bring these technologies online, and the national will to make changes in how we think of energy and how we use it. No easy task, that, as President Obama said at MIT yesterday:

Now, while the challenges today are different, we have to draw on the same spirit of innovation that’s always been central to our success. And that’s especially true when it comes to energy. There may be plenty of room for debate as to how we transition from fossil fuels to renewable fuels — we all understand there’s no silver bullet to do it. There’s going to be a lot of debate about how we move from an economy that’s importing oil to one that’s exporting clean energy technology; how we harness the innovative potential on display here at MIT to create millions of new jobs; and how we will lead the world to prevent the worst consequences of climate change. There are going to be all sorts of debates, both in the laboratory and on Capitol Hill. But there’s no question that we must do all these things.

Countries on every corner of this Earth now recognize that energy supplies are growing scarcer, energy demands are growing larger, and rising energy use imperils the planet we will leave to future generations. And that’s why the world is now engaged in a peaceful competition to determine the technologies that will power the 21st century. From China to India, from Japan to Germany, nations everywhere are racing to develop new ways to producing and use energy. The nation that wins this competition will be the nation that leads the global economy. I am convinced of that. And I want America to be that nation. It’s that simple.

I would quibble with the president and add that the bio-tech revolution - one we are currently leading but in danger of falling back - will also determine which nation “leads the global economy.” But he is correct to make the search for viable renewables into a race.

And given this excellent head start, I wouldn’t bet against America just yet.

UPDATE

Nick Loris at the Heritage blog also finds some good things in the president’s speech at MIT. But he also points out what I did - that the idea these programs will result in a net gain of jobs is dubious at best.

But the green stimulus, free lunch rhetoric neglects the costs, both real and opportunity costs, that come with a government stimulus. Heritage analyst Ben Lieberman writes that a green stimulus is actually a contradiction in terms: “Support for renewables would likely cost more jobs than are created. For example, subsidies for wind and solar energy would, at least from the narrow perspective of the wind and solar industries, create new jobs as more of these systems are manufactured and installed. But the tax dollars needed to help pay for them cost jobs elsewhere, as would the pricey electricity they produce.”

Our analysis of the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill finds that there will be 1.9 million fewer jobs by 2012 after accounting for green jobs. Job losses would grow to 2.5 million by 2035. This makes us a cap and trade naysayer, who Obama attacks towards the end of his speech.

I really wish the president would simply stick to promoting these programs as a spur to innovation rather than some kind of jobs program. He is on much firmer ground, as Loris points out, when talking about the spirit of entrepreneurship that these monies will ignite.