Scott Brown and the conservatives
Hasn’t this past week or so been a wild and woolly ride in the world of politics? I mean, we had all
kinds of excitement, including a Republican win in the mostly liberal state of Massachusetts. Who would have thought Scott Brown could have ever pulled off his victory, but we have proof, as he will soon be seated as the 41st Republican in the United States Senate.
A lot has been said all over the news and on multiple blogs about this victory. I really do not want to hash it out all over again, as that is not the purpose of this article. What I do want to address is an issue that has been raised by my coauthor on Political Realities. Mike made a passing reference in a comment on one of my articles, but he went into further detail while commenting on an article from America’s Watchtower. He raised the question of how Scott Brown will be received by conservatives when he has to campaign again in 2012.
As for Brown, I said in an earlier comment and stick by it — his only redeeming quality to conservatives was his vote against health care reform BUT he is actually a health care reform supporter. He is also pro choice. And he posed nude for Cosmo. Hardly a conservative poster boy. A year from now I will like him more than any of you because he is essentially a fiscal conservative and a social moderate.
What Mike says is true. From what I can understand, he did support health care reform in Massachusetts, as a State Representative, he is pro choice, and of course, he did pose nude. (Well publicized photos prove that charge without a doubt.) Mike’s comments have prompted me to do a lot of thinking about this and my mind naturally wandered to the 2008 Republican presidential primary campaign.
I am sure most of you, especially those of you who were involved in the campaign, will remember how hard fought it was. The support of Republican voters was spread out among Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee, and John McCain. I am not interested in rehashing the campaign and the harshness thereof, as I think that will serve no purpose, but I do want to make mention of one thing. One of the reasons no one candidate seemed to have a firm hold on the Republican vote was because of division among certain parts of the party. Mitt Romney was accused of flip-flopping on abortion, although he was strong on the economy. Mike Huckabee was accused of being a fiscal liberal, but he was good on social issues. Fred Thompson was accused of not really wanting the job. John McCain was accused of a social moderate, but he was strong on national security and the defense of our nation. The campaign was a rather nasty one, with McCain coming out on top, probably due to his strong stance on national security.
This assessment is short and sweet, I am aware, but it is sufficient for my purpose. It highlights the strife and the division between the different sections of the Republican Party. The social conservatives are of the opinion that their issues are the most important. The same can be said of the fiscal and national security conservatives and all three have some basis in the truth. All three are important to our country, in some way or another, but is any of the three so important that they overrule the other two?
Let’s go back to Mike and what he said in the earlier comment he referenced in the quote above, on one of my own articles.
And I’ll tell you another campaign that I predict will get especially ugly — the 2012 Massachusetts Senate race. That’s when conservatives and teabaggers who today love and adore Scott Brown will attack him with a vengeance for his moderate views (pro abortion rights, pro national health care) and put the mobs of special interest groups, now emboldened by the Supreme Court, to work ripping him apart in favor of some more appealing candidate with proper conservative credentials.
I have to say this, in regards to the issue Mike has brought up. To say it has not happened before would be to deny the truth. All one has to do is go back to the 2008 Republican primary campaign to see it. Not only was the campaign very harsh, but it resulted in a lot of Republicans flat out refusing to vote for someone other than their own candidate. I even considered not voting for McCain because I supported Mike Huckabee, but in the end, I supported the Republican ticket. There were a lot of voters who did not choose that route, as they refused to vote for anyone who did not reflect their values, in one way or another. That was and is their prerogative, but I contend that may be one of the reasons Barack Obama is sitting in the White House today.
So, here is the question. In the upcoming elections, will the Republicans tear themselves apart because of division among their own party? Will social conservatives be able to vote for someone who isn’t, if they are the best candidate available? What about fiscal conservatives, will they possibly cast their vote for a Republican candidate that may not be as fiscally conservative as they should be? How about national security conservatives? Can they bring themselves to vote for a Republican candidate who may be a little light on the national security credentials?
We are about to enter the mid-term election season and this is something that should be considered. I would never try to tell anyone how they should vote, as that is their own decision, but I will say this. Republicans or conservatives need every vote we can muster in Congress and I think that need has to be considered before and during the upcoming campaigns and beyond. We should ask ourselves if tearing down any particular candidate, simply because they are not conservative enough in one way or another, is the way we should proceed.
Will conservatives in Massachusetts suddenly discover that Scott Brown is not enough of a conservative to warrant their support in 2012? Will he be thrown out with the bath water? At the very least, this should give all who consider themselves Republican and/or conservative a lot of food for thought.
Wow. Good questions. And Mike is right I think. I was a little stunned when I found out (after the he won) that he was pro-choice. The nude thing threw me a little to.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
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Great post Larry with loads of questions that will demand attention from Republicans of all stripes if the GOP is going to enjoy the fruits of the Democrats implosion.
Good questions all, Larry.
I think Massachussets is a great example of the paradox facing the GOP today: A Conservative who can win in the Northeast is a different breed from one who can win in the midwest. If the GOP continues to pay attention to this reality and let the state parties choose their candidates, I think 2010 doesn’t bode well for Democrats.
But the question, for me, is whether or not the national party can allow this to happen. Remember the Conservative litmus test that is floating around the GOP? No candidate shall get fundraising dollars unless they support certain positions. I don’t think the basic issues are unreasonable, but it’s “modeled” after Ronald Reagan who (like Scott Brown) himself wouldn’t pass the test. This will be the big test for the GOP in 2012.
I think, too, that we need to watch carefully what happens with the 2010 elections. The Tea Partiers are attmepting to morph into more than a movement with their national, working convention next week in Nashville. If they succeed, we could very well see Tea Party candidates on the ballot along with GOP and Dems. This could cause a split in the Conservative vote, and could cause a bitter fracture in 2012.
Take a peek at what’s been happening in Arizona. JD Hayworth quit his job as a conservative radio host when a Rasmussen poll showed him within the margin of error of beating McCain for Senate. Hayworth has been a big, outspooken proponent of the Tea Party movement. So has Sarah Palin (slated as the keynote in next week’s above referenced convention). Yet, when it comes down to it, Palin is stumping for McCain and Hayworth has already fallen behind. But the fracture is there.
You hit on a good point, Laurie. I have nothing against the Tea Parties, but in their success lies the possibility of crippling the Republican Party. This is just my honest opinion, but I think conservatives should work to gain control of the Republican Party leadership, instead of working to create their own party. The reason is simple and your comment says it well.
If the conservative vote is split between the Republican and a third party candidate, it could lead to the conservative voice in Congressional and other offices being minimized. I don’t think that is something we need.
I know there may be a lot of people who read this that may disagree completely. They may think it’s time to completely scrap the Republicans and go with third party candidates. While doing that sounds good on a grand scale, I am not sure it will do much practical good. If the Republican Party is sidelined completely, I think it will almost certainly move the Democrat Party into a position of completely controlling the agenda in Washington.
Doing this would be a mistake, in my opinion. I think the best thing for conservatives to do is to work as hard as they can to have the best conservative candidates possible, from within the Republican Party itself.
I don’t want to “pick apart” your argument here, but rather try to look at things from a different angle.
The first thing I’d point out is that this isn’t about the Republican Party. They’re nothing but a bureaucracy, a machine. Unfortunately, looking back over the past 100 years, the party has never been conservative. In other words, there’s no party to re-take, and gaining control is more difficult than most think (unless we were a couple of billionaires).
Sure, their constituents have always been conservative, but not the party. For example, the party constantly attacked “Mr. Republican” Robert A. Taft, and the party also did much more damage to Goldwater’s presidential campaign than LBJ could have dreamed of doing himself!
Progressivism is America’s #1 enemy of freedom, and progressives fill the Republican Party too! McCain is a progressive.
If you do the math on the value of your vote, it’s basically impossible for you to cast the deciding vote. This is why “voting for the lesser evil” is a fallacy. Besides, evil is evil.
Voting also sends a market signal to the political parties, just like buying a product at a particular store sends a market signal. So voting for McCain, sent a market signal that conservative voters are willing to endorse a big government progressive.
There are Republicans I support, but I support them as individual candidates, not because they’re Republican. That said, it’s a small sacrifice to vote for a third party/independent candidate. If more people were willing to drop the collective theory of voting and start voting as individuals, the market signals would change, thus changing the political incentive system too.
People will vote for a limited-government message if given the chance, but we won’t get that chance until more people accept that Republican does not equal conservative. “We the people” need to change the incentive system!
theCL´s last blog ..New Information on Abdulmutallab the Underwear Bomber
theCL,
First of all, thanks for taking the time to comment on Political Realities. We do appreciate it.
Sadly, you are right about the Republican Party. The establishment is not conservative and no matter what I say, that is not going to change. I know a lot of people would have to change the way they vote before any third party candidate would have a chance in a national election. In 2008, 1,859,793 votes were cast for third party presidential candidates. That is nowhere close to the number of votes that would be needed to effect the outcome of the election. While I respect those who chose to vote third party, I have to wonder if it would not be more advantageous to attempt to gain control of the party itself, instead of trying to start a new one.
There is a reason for my madness. I am afraid the Republican Party will cede power over completely to the Democrats, if they are weakened by third party candidates. I am talking Congress here. Could we not work within the party to do this, instead of working from without and standing very little chance of changing the situation?
I guess what I am saying is this. I know Republican does not equal conservative, at least not 100% of the time. Maybe we could change that, do you think?
Well, yeah … I didn’t mean to imply giving up on the party, but I can’t figure out a realistic way to do it. I believe every angle has to be pushed, I just have no faith in the party (and I’m a 23-year registered Republican).
I know the Beltway pundits like to talk about ideology as a bad thing, but “we the people” will never win anything until we change the ideology of Washington, back to the rule of law and the plain language of the Constitution.
Our Founders made great sacrifices to give us the gift of liberty. And I’m not talking about those we all know. I’m talking about the many nameless men, women and children who fired upon the British as they marched into their towns.
We have to be willing to sacrifice my friend. I fear for our country.
Hey, your madness isn’t so mad, because I don’t believe they’ll cede power … I think they’re 2 in the same.
God help us all!
Third party is a big topic, too much for now …
theCL´s last blog ..New Information on Abdulmutallab the Underwear Bomber
Brown is a conservative by MA standards and thats good enough of this far right wing radical. I don’t expect him to walk and talk like a MS conservative and anyone who does is living on another planet. Will he have the support of the Tea Party people in 2012—who knows. Depends on the prevailing winds at that time. 2012 is light years away on the political calendar.
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Good observation, Ron. Perhaps the question, in addition to “will he get Tea Party support in 2012″ is “will he need it?” If he represents MA well, he won’t need it. If he runs to the right on issues that get MA voters’ back up, he might.
I did not like John McCain, abd I swore that I would never vote for him, but in the end I did because I thought that Barack Obama had to be stopped. I have sworn that I will never do that again, if I do not like a candidate I will not vote for them. I will vote third party. Still, that is much easier said than dine, I don’t know what will happen if I actually have to choose between two candidate that I don’t like. In the end the base will be true, I don’t think they were in 2008, so the question is, what will the independents do? That is who is going to decide the next election. The left base will hold true also, and I feel that independens are going to lean towards the right in the next elections. I think there is more of an anti-incumbant mood out there, rather than a liberal/conservative mood.
As for Scott Brown, there are very, very few Republicans in the state legislature, the voters knew that he was not a conservative by national standards, but a conservative compared to other Mass. politicians. That will not be held against him, but the Democrats will mount a fierce capaign to win back that seat. Hopefully he will be judged on his record one way or the other.
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I had heard that Scott Brown was not as conservative as some people thought he was. Still, his election serves as an indictment against the Democrat agenda.
Republicans have always included a broader base than most people have thought. I never considered McCain to be a conservative although he has conservative ideas…as well as big government ideas.
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You and I have some of the same concerns regarding Brown: he is not all that of a conservative. However, some of the leadership in the GOP are likely fine with this, as they let the ideology of a region dictate whom they will support. This is really sad, as it takes away from the message that can be taught regarding what conservatism is.
My fear here, is that if Romney can’t find his footing because of his flip flopping of abortion that the RINO’s of the party will try and push Brown as a presidential candidate: I will not vote for him.
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Phil,
Thanks for taking time to comment on Political Realities. I know you are a busy man.
Scott Brown is not as much of a conservative as I would like him to be, but let me ask you a question. Considering the area of the country he comes from, is he not fairly conservative? Yes, he is pro-choice and in favor of a national health care system, but does that disqualify him from representing the citizens of Massachusetts, who are decidedly more liberal than a lot of the country? Let’s assume for a moment that you live in Massachusetts. Would you have voted for Brown over Coakley, knowing he is not as conservative as you would like?
My point is this. Time after time, we have seen Republicans tearing their own candidates down for not being as conservative as they “should be”. (I am not talking about the outright stupid things some of them have done, such as Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina.) I hate to see that happening, as I am afraid it will hurt our chances in the mid-term elections.
As for Brown being pushed as a Presidential candidate, I don’t see that happening.