Thursday, May 9, 2013

Cryfecta

While running the, largely unknown, Conservatives for Republican Reform campaign a few years ago, I asked supporters to send a letter to Michael Steele that contained the following paragraph demanding (among other things);
...accountability from Party leadership for support of candidates that do not share the values articulated in the Republican Party Platform, over viable candidates that do hold conservative values (such as endorsing Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey in the Pennsylvania Republican Senatorial primary prior to Arlen Specter's defection to the Democrat Party).
The Specter/Toomey race provided the perfect canvas for illustrating the tendency of the establishment to favor political expedience over principle. Pat Toomey's election to the US Senate was one of the victories celebrated by the conservative grassroots in the 2010 election cycle. And while Senator Toomey is obviously a significant improvement over Specter, it has been profoundly disappointing to watch his recent contortions in support of the Manchin-Toomey gun control bill. As a previous Toomey campaign supporter I expressed that disappointment in a recent email contact through Toomey's office website. The lengthy reply from Toomey's office is a pretty good indication that there were plenty of other folks expressing the same sentiments.

The Manchin-Toomey bill is pretty straightforward. I don't think that there is widespread confusion about the meaning of the bill, but that is the assumption that the reply from Toomey's office was based upon. The obvious argument that a gun control bill is not a school safety bill is apparently lost on politicians. At least it's lost on Republican politicians that generally seem determined to let Democrat politicians tell them how the response to any crisis should be framed. The letter from Toomey's office spelled out that there were three key parts to the bill, but not one of those three parts dealt with mental illness or school safety. All three parts dealt exclusively with gun control laws. It was disappointing enough that Toomey provided sponsorship for this bill, but the tortured rationalizations in the response simply clarify the absence of principled intent, and an expectation that conservatives should fall in line. He's Pat Toomey after all.

Enter Marco Rubio. The Crist/Rubio race was another classic establishment vs. grassroots match-up from the 2010 election cycle. After Rubio's victory he became an overnight rising star for the GOP conservative base. Rubio's recent talk radio tour in support of the "gang of 8" comprehensive immigration reform proposal has conservatives all over the country scratching their heads. When Democrats and Republicans claim to agree that more needs to be done to secure the border, it should be possible for Democrats and Republicans to create a bill on the things they agree on. If neither side is committed enough to border security to create a border security bill, it seems pretty unlikely that either side will be committed to demanding that border security provisions in a comprehensive immigration bill be upheld after its passage. To be generous regarding the tactics that Rubio is using to sell the bill to conservatives through the talk radio outlets, they are misleading at the least.

Finally, just last week we learned that Paul Ryan is now a supporter of gay adoption. I'm not sure how one can simultaneously be against gay marriage, but for gay adoption, but apparently Ryan has been a closet supporter of gay adoption for years. His 1999 vote against gay adoption in the District of Columbia must have just been a mistake.  He has seen the light in the intervening years, but it isn't clear exactly when, or if there was anything specific that sealed the deal for him. We can only wonder if Ryan's support of gay marriage is just around the corner.

These aren't minor issues, these aren't minor players in the conservative political sphere, and these are certainly not minor compromises of principle. The most troubling thread in this tapestry of capitulation is the implicit assumption that conservatives will just fall in line and accept the word of these icons that these are good conservative positions. Clearly, in the case of Rubio and Toomey, there is an expectation that word from these conservative heroes should be good enough. The problem with trying to lend your credibility to the incredible, is that it's real tough to get it back. Conservatives are cynical enough about politics and politicians without this kind of help. It's really not hard to convince conservatives that a bill is a good bill...as long as it's actually a good bill.

No comments:

Post a Comment