Will Republicans get the message?
I had started to post something about Tuesday’s elections quite a few times, but I was having a hard time articulating exactly what I thought needed to happen. Now I’m glad that I waited, because I couldn’t have said it better than Lowman Henry:
With the top two leadership posts vacant, a spirited battle is under way in the Senate. Keeping in mind that both President Pro Tempore Robert Jubelirer (R., Blair) and Majority Leader Chip Brightbill (R., Lebanon) were ousted over the pay raise, the election to either of those two offices of another senator who supported the pay raise would be a slap in the face to voters.
In the House, Speaker John Perzel (R., Phila.) was a prime architect of the pay raise. The losing Republicans this year - both in the primary and general elections - were largely his allies, many of whom lost because of the pay-raise issue. After his having failed to protect his minions, it would be foolhardy for the returning members of the GOP caucus and newly elected legislators to return him to a leadership post. Furthermore, Perzel was the enabler-in-chief for passage of the Rendell agenda that ran counter to core Republican principles. Thus, retention of Perzel as speaker (or minority leader) would signal a refusal by the House Republican caucus to return to the principles of the Republican Party.
Finally, the state Republican Party itself is in need of a new direction. For two election cycles in a row, party leaders have used heavy-handed tactics to clear the primary field for its hand-picked candidate for governor. Both elections ended in overwhelming defeat. It is time for state Republicans to place their trust in voters and return to them their right to select nominees for statewide offices by offering a choice in primary elections. Furthermore, the Republican State Committee must end the top-down model of decision-making that has allowed many of the now-discredited legislative leaders, among others, to dictate candidates rather than allowing such decisions to grow from the grassroots upward.
Don’t blame the people that didn’t vote for the Republican Party. Blame the Party that put people in a position where they felt that they couldn’t vote Republican.
Voting machines, fraud and Tuesday
We’re close now. Really close. On Tuesday millions of people across the country will head to the polls. Here in Pennsylvania, tens of thousands will be voting on brand new machines. The Democrats need to win a few key House races here in PA to be successful in taking back that branch and Santorum is public enemy number 1 for the Dems. All eyes on Pennsylvania, where our machines are virtually untested, confusion is likely to abound, and scores of lawyers will be watching over the shoulders of election judges.
Expect chaos to ensue. In light of the judicially-decided Presidential election of 2000, campaigns are almost as much of a legal battle now as a political one. Given how important many of the races here in PA are, expect lawsuits. Expect both sides to claim that there was fraud, and especially expect this if the Democrats are unsuccessful in retaking the House.
Unfortunately, it appears that this is the point that our fledgling Democracy has reached. If you don’t win, you sue. It almost makes you wonder if the media hasn’t been complicit in setting up this scenario. Not to be too much of a conspiracy-theorist, but it would be quite a shrewd strategy to spend months setting up Republicans for huge electoral losses so that if your side happens to lose, well, any nimrod can see that it must have been because of fraud. Then again, we all know that there’s no way that the media would actively aid the Democrats, don’t we?
Here are my predictions. If Santorum wins, there will be a lawsuit (I won’t rule out the possibility of a lawsuit if Santorum loses, either). If the Dems fail to take the House, expect lots of lawsuits. If Rendell loses…all right, let’s not get crazy here. Unfortunately, this is the strategy of the Democratic Party in the U.S.: whatever you can’t win at the polls, win in the courts. That’s a pretty strong statement about the strength of the Democrat’s ideas, isn’t it?
They let you have CONDOMS in jail?
Philadelphia is considering increasing condom distribution in their jails.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - City officials are considering letting jail inmates have greater access to condoms, perhaps by adding condoms to the commissary list.
Pennsylvania state prisons consider condoms to be contraband because they can be used for smuggling, but current city policy has allowed condom distribution since 1988. About 8,000 condoms are distributed annually in the city’s jails, but the daily inmate population typically exceeds 8,500.
City prison system spokesman Robert Eskind said Thursday that questions have been raised about how closely the policy is being followed.
Ok, let’s make jails paradise and then expect jail time to be a discouragement to committing crimes. Great idea.
Casey Loves Kerry
By now you’ve all surely heard the flap over John Kerry’s ridiculous comments regarding our troops:
You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.
He claims it was a botched joke, but I think that it’s clear that he was saying what he really thinks. Any Democrat with a brain is running as far and fast from Kerry as humanly possible, but not our Bob Casey, Jr. No, he thinks the comments were just fine.
From what I can gather, Kerry botched a joke. That’s what he said, and I take him at his word. He served in combat. Last time I checked, the president and the vice president did not. The White House and the Santorum forces should get to work on dealing with the real problems in Iraq.
Casey was even willing to go ahead and allow Kerry to come to Pennsylvania and campaign for him today until Kerry had the brains to cancel the event.
For Republicans on the fence about Rick Santorum, this just might be the push that they needed to come down firmly for Rick. Who would have guessed that Santorum’s “October Surprise” would have been courtesy of liberal John Kerry?
FreePA Forums
This site was originally created with the intention of being a forum for conservatives to organize and discuss the issues of the day. I tried it for a while, but what appeared to be a lack of interest led me to turn it into a blog. Now, however, I have heard the voices of many disaffected conservatives who are seeking a place where they can discuss politics without fear of retribution for not drinking the Republican Party’s Kool-Aid. I have joined with a group of the willing to re-launch the FreePA Forums. You can also access them by clicking on the link to the right.
In way of introducing the site, allow me to quote from the rules (posted in each forum on the site):
This is a site for conservatives. You will note that the word ‘conservative’ is not the same word as ‘Republican.’ While the majority of users registered and posting on this site may be Republicans, don’t be surprised if you find that little-known quality called intellectual honesty appearing on this site. The posters on this site are committed to conservative principles rather than a political party. As such, you may find Republicans being taken to task as much as Democrats. If this makes you uncomfortable, this site is probably not for you.
In a nutshell, that’s what these forums are about. If I were you, I would hurry and register before all of the cool names are taken.
Salena Zito: The 7 rules to obey
Salena Zito, writing in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, outlines the seven rules that a political candidate cannot break if he or she wishes to be successful. She places this in the context of next Tuesday’s election and outlines mistakes made on both sides of the aisle.
Overall, this is an excellent piece and I agree with most of her points. One that I do have to take issue with, however, it this:
Never waste your time; next to cash and your base it is your most important commodity.
I agree with the overall point not to waste time, but I disagree that it is a commodity to be valued less than cash or your base. A candidate’s time is the most important resource that a campaign has to work with. Next to nothing. You can’t get your candidate’s time back. If a candidate spends a half-hour at the door of a supporter talking about how the campaign is going rather than pounding on the door’s of voters who have yet to make up their minds, you will never get that half-hour back. If you blow $50 on something meaningless rather than buying that extra radio spot that you need, there’s always an opportunity to raise another $50. As for your base, they are obviously crucial, but nowhere near as crucial as your candidate’s time.
This is a minor point, and everyone should take the time to read the piece.
PI profiles Gubernatorial candidates
The Philadelphia Inquirer profiles both Ed Rendell and Lynn Swann today. These are your typical puff pieces on the candidates. There’s nothing really substantive, and I’ve never quite understood the point of these pieces. If you’re interested in the more “personal” side of the candidates, give them a read.
Swann broke
Lynn Swann only has just over $300,000 left in the bank heading into the final days of the campaign. For a statewide campaign, this is nothing. Swann was doomed from the beginning, so this really isn’t that big of a surprise. It simply confirms what most of us have always known: Rendell will be our next Governor.
One step closer to Hillary-Care
Our state legislature has very ignorantly moved us one step closer to socialized medicine. This was a classic political tactic: use the kids. Who was going to vote against a bill to provide healthcare to kids? Well, principled conservatives standing up for what’s right should have voted for it, but instead the bill passed the Senate unanimously and the House by a vote of 176-19.
This bill takes us further down the past of wrong-headed medical reform. By providing socialized healthcare to kids, we are now set up for the coming argument that if we’re covering kids that are too poor to have health insurance, why aren’t we covering their parents, as well? This is a bill that should have been dead upon arrival, but instead our legislature has (once again) made a decision that will have dire economic effects on this state.
Paul Weyrich on building a new Republican Party
Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation discusses building a ‘New Republican Party,’ and why we need one.
Here is the problem. As Majority Leader William H. (Bill) Frist, M.D., told me, “I have a Republican majority but not a conservative majority.” If he had an additional seven seats which were conservative he could do almost anything. Absent those he is stuck passing much of what the House has passed and cannot get by the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture or to shut off debate, in the House, former Majority Leader Tom DeLay said his problem in the House was that he had 30 to 40 Greens. They always vote with the Democrats on environmental issues. Again, if he had had another 30 Republican House Members the current leadership could have passed almost anything.
And this is precisely the problem. There are lots of ‘Republicans’ in Congress, but very few conservatives. It’s time that conservatives started voting their conscience and stop rubberstamping Republicans.