Huntsman Message Can’t Be Boring

Former Governor and Ambassador Jon Huntsman (R)

By: Brian Sikma

Mitt Romney is probably feeling pretty good right about now. He’s been running for President long enough to be the de facto front runner which carries more downsides than upsides at this point. A persistent problem he’s had to face is that he’s just too boring. The reaction of a typical crowd of the GOP faithful is something mixed between “sure, he’s smart but he’s also distant,” and “yeah, he sounds conservative but how long is that going to last?” To be fair, Romney isn’t a far leftist even though he’s not been a consistent conservative in the past.

But just why might he be feeling good? Well, he’s no longer the most boring candidate in the race. That distinction must be awarded to Jon Huntsman, a yet-to-be-defined candidate surrounded by some of the top veterans of McCain presidential campaigns. Huntsman has a particular allure right now because he’s a fresh face, someone who’s not been publicly working for the past 6 years on a national campaign. However, when it comes to frankly nailing down the issues and explaining where he stands, Huntsman needs to switch from diplomat mode to candid fellow American. It’s certainly an image his jean jackets and Reaganesque campaign announcement venue are trying to reinforce.

In a smart move the Huntsman campaign has placed videos on the campaign website’s homepage featuring the candidate talking about important issues. People don’t care about reading white papers, and short videos are a great way to share where you stand on the issues. But, in those videos you’ve got to connect with voters and use the language they use. In tackling the biggest issue of the 2012 cycle, Jobs, Huntsman starts his video with the following line:

“Jobs will be a function of our relative competitive position as a country. . .”

Uh, what did he just say? (I actually went back and replayed that first line when I watched the video for the first time.) Jobs will be a function of our relative competitive position as a country? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? The average American catching that on the move during their busy day is going to ask “Okay, does that mean I will or I will not get my job back if you are our next President?”

I’m not underestimating the intelligence of the American people. Far from it. What Huntsman said is true as an academic description of one of the challenges we face as a nation in creating jobs. But as a prescriptive statement offering a solution, or as an identity statement sharing voter sentiment, it’s worthless.

The American people are right now looking for a candidate who 1) understands their problems, and 2) has a pointed message about solving that problem. They are not ripe for demagogues to dupe them into believing shallow solutions exist for deep problems (recent elections have proven that), but they want something simple and straightforward in a candidate.

Huntsman is a new candidate on the national scene, and there is reason to expect that his message about jobs and other issues will sound less wonkish and more straightforward in the future. But until a major candidate is able to smartly identify themselves with the problems of the American people and address them in a way that sounds like their neighbor talking about solving a problem in the neighborhood, Republicans are going to lose valuable message time and opportunity. The message in 2012 can’t be boring if conservatism is to make a comeback and carry the White House.

 

After Kagan Endorsement, Lugar Shouldn’t Run

Ms. Kagan

By: Brian Sikma

Ahead of the full Senate’s vote to confirm U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court, Senate Richard Lugar has declared that he will vote in favor of President’s nominee. Lugar joined South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham in becoming the first two Republican Senators to publicly support Kagan, who has a thin record of judicial experience but a very well-documented record of political maneuvering, and is arguably the most liberal individual to ever be nominated to the Supreme Court.

As disappointing as it is that Lugar would heartily back President Obama’s Supreme Court nominees, it should have come as no surprise. In the early months of his administration, the President nominated federal district judge David F. Hamilton, then serving in Indiana, for an opening on the federal appellate bench. Hamilton made a name for himself several years ago when he ruled that prayers uttered in the name of Jesus Christ in the Indiana General Assembly violated the establishment clause of the 1^st Amendment. Hamilton’s reasoning was obtuse, his use of precedent horrendous, and eventually his ruling was overturned by the very appellate court on which he now sits. Despite that, however, Lugar still praised Hamilton effusively when the President picked him as his first judicial nominee.

Lugar’s stated reasons for backing Kagan are that she is “clearly qualified” and that she has a “distinguished career in both education and public service.” Ms. Kagan is the least experienced judicial nominee in perhaps the history of the court. She has never served on the federal bench and has absolutely no prior experience anywhere as a judge. Her most extensive work experience that could apply to her new job is her recent work as Solicitor General, where she has only argued cases before the Supreme Court.

The “distinguished career” that she has amassed includes vehemently opposing military recruiters on the campus of Harvard Law School, and working in the Clinton White House to carefully review important legal matters through the lens of political calculation. At various points in her past she has expressed acceptance of the idea that U.S. courts should look beyond the Constitution and towards international legal norms (established by the U.N., European Union, and others) for guidance in their decision-making.

The bar for what constitutes “clearly qualified” has been significantly lowered if, in the eyes of Sen. Lugar, Ms. Kagan is just that. Micah Clark, of the American Family Association of Indiana, said, “If this is the new low standard for ‘clearly qualified’ to be one of just nine members of the highest court in the nation with enormous power to control our lives, our system of government and a lifetime appointment to boot, then we are really in trouble.” Clark is right. Unfortunately, Lugar refuses to set aside his thinking that Congress somehow owes it to the President to confirm his judicial nominees.

Those like Lugar and Lindsey Graham, who argue that they must vote for any and all judicial nominations out of respect for the President, or just because they personally deem them to be “clearly qualified,” are disengaging from their job. Just as Presidents win elections and thus the prerogative to appoint whomever they wish, Senators are sent to Washington to be a check, not a rubberstamp, on executive power. In easily passing favorable judgment about Ms. Kagan’s nomination, Sen. Lugar failed to do what the people of Indiana sent him to Washington to do. Further, by so quickly and uncritically embracing a judicial nominee who is nothing more than a left-wing lawyer-activist, Lugar failed his own Republican Party.

In 2012, Senator Lugar should pass up the chance to run again; he should retire and leave the field open for a stronger, more vigorous, more conservative candidate who will not uncritically accept the dictates of Washington as direction for how he should fulfill is personal responsibility. Indiana, and Indiana Republicans, deserve better than Richard Lugar.

 

Reignite, Revive, Reclaim

What Conservatives and the Republican Party Need to Do to Win Back the Majority.

By: Brian Sikma

January 30, 2009

A time in the wilderness forces individuals and movements to contemplate their existence, their purpose, and their direction.  All distractions are stripped away, all facts laid bare and all pretenses set aside when solitude and separation replace the swirling activities we have been accustomed too.  The conservative movement, and the Republican Party, find themselves in this situation today.  We are in the wilderness.

Whether or not we stay irrelevant during this time and muddle about never learning the lessons we should learn, or whether we mercilessly grade our past performance and prepare for future achievements is a decision all our own.  Republicans lost in 2006 and 2008 because they were irrelevant, uncompelling, and playing politics instead of living by principle.  Conservatism, by nature a movement not synonymous with the Republican Party, failed politically because it had little voice in the instrument that became its mouthpiece in the realm of elections and politics.  Make no mistake, though, conservatism did not lose the 2006 and 2008 elections because conservatism was not on the ballot as a candidate.

Those candidates that successfully articulated a conservative message, and were able to distinguish themselves from Republican errors and disasters, were the candidates that won inspite of unfavorable environments for the party brand.  Not every conservative won because not every conservative was successful at communicating the conservative message, and the problems of communication range from lack of financial support to candidate inexperience.  But these communication problems are easier to solve than any fundamental problems of having a party or series of candidates that may not espouse the conservative philosophy.

Republicans must understand that conservative are not to be taken for granted, and paying lip services to a series of conservative issue positions while not understanding the conservative philosophy as a whole, or its application to politics, will only lead to repeats of the disasters of the previous two election cycles.  Conservatives should, and in many cases already do, know that the Republican Party is not a synonym for conservative ideas.  Even after surveying the failures of the Republican Party over the past two cycles (failures that did not crop up overnight but began with Congressional majorities and a president that either ignored or forgot the principles of limited government and fiscal accountability and responsibility), conservatives should not seriously consider bolting the party.  Not yet.

Instead of bolting from the Republican Party and seeking to build anew from the ground up, a challenge not be underestimated, conservatives would be better served to lead a revolution within the GOP.  A revolt against the mediocrity of the past, a revolt against the unrestrained spending, the reckless expansion of government, and the idea that more left-leaning principles are required if the party is to be relevant in future elections.

Click Here to Read the Rest…

 

Innovation And Integration

House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA)

By: Brian Sikma

Democrats don’t have a monopoly anymore on successful innovation that uses the power of the internet and social media to further a broad based agenda for the country.  A key member of the new House Republican leadership team has begun to reach out to the millions of Americans who are skeptical of some of the policies being proposed by the majority party in Congress.   Rep. Eric Cantor and his team launched a brand new website at the start of the 111th Congress and it looks more like a campaign website than your traditional, limited interaction official Congressional website.

For years the role of the Whip was to count noses within the Conference and, when and where necessary, convince party members to vote the party line on crucial votes.  While that traditional role is still very much front and center for Cantor, his deputy Rep. Kevin McCarthy, and their team, it has been expanded to include an effort that integrates the policy views of the base and the political activism of supporters with the overall whip process.  Whereas the past operation of the office was confined to the hallways of Capitol Hill and private meetings and phone calls, this new operation leverages the input and output of Americans who will never work on Capitol Hill and yet have valuable contributions to make to the policy process.

On the Whip’s website you will find the traditional “About”, “Newsroom” and “Contact Us” elements combined with links to Cantor’s Whip Twitter feed, the team’s YouTube page, a blog, and free e-mail subscriptions to such publications as “The Whipping Post”, a summary of expected floor activity detailing days votes are expected on various bills and resolutions.  Some of this information is new (Whips in the past never had a Twitter feed), and some of it has been available but just not easily accessible to the average person (the House schedule can be found online, but having it delivered an understandable format to your Inbox is quite a development).

A Republican Whip is limited to working within the bounds of his Conference.  He has little influence over members of the opposing party, especially if the Republican party is in the minority.  But with the American people allied behind the entire Conference’s effort to present serious, substantive, and positive alternatives, he can leverage grassroots activism that may one day generate a few Democrat votes for Republican proposals.

As Republicans prepare to do what they can while they are in the minority, their most powerful ally lies outside of Washington, D.C.  The American people, when presented with the correct information and a compelling argument, agree with the principles of less spending, lower taxes, an economy driven by the people and not managed by the government, and the whole host of other ideals that guide conservative political thinking.  To use this ally, however, Republicans must reach out and engage people where they are at.  The new Republican Whip Operation does just that.

 

Citizens and Experts Discuss Property Taxes

By: Brian Sikma

What happens when you put a group of interested and engaged citizens in a room with a panel of property tax experts?  A lively discussion ensues with both sides walking away a little more informed than when the event started.  That was the case on Saturday morning when the St. Joseph County GOP headquarters was turned into a sort of local think-tank with a large crowd of interested citizens asking tough questions and offering intriguing insights into one side of the property tax debate while a panel of experts offered up their perspective of the situation.

The diverse panel was made up of Mayor Jeff Rea of Mishawaka, economist Josh Barro of the Tax Foundation in Washington, D.C., state Senator Joe Zakas of Granger, and Juan Manigault representing the South Bend Integrity PAC.  Chris Riley, the St. Joseph County GOP Chairman, served as the able moderator who provided thought provoking questions to start off the morning and kept the discussion on track as the panelists and audience interacted with each other.

Senator Zakas pointed out that property taxes went down by an average of 30% across the state after the passage of HB 1001 in 2008, the bill that included the so-called 1,2,3 plan.  This plan caps residential property taxes at 1% of assessed value, rental property and agricultural property at 2% of assessed value, and commercial and business property at 3% of assessed value.  Debate in the General Assembly this year is expected to include a discussion about placing the tax caps in the state Constitution as a way of protecting taxpayers and landowners against future increases.

All of the panelists agreed that the reforms included in HB 1001 were necessary in light of what Mayor Rea termed “administrative chaos” in the property tax system.  However, views differed according to whether or not the existing caps should be put in the Constitution.  Sen. Zakas appeared to support the idea, but Juan Manigault and Mayor Rea urged caution because the reforms have not had time to generate sufficient data to really consider enshrining them in the state’s highest law.

Josh Barro did not take a strong position either way.  Instead he focused his time on presenting the various pros and cons of the 1,2,3 plan and the placement of those caps in the Constitution.  He noted that with the caps now in place, Indiana’s property tax rate is now more in line with what other states are doing, but the diversity of the caps-essentially three tiers of taxes-was considered to be an unfortunate compromise required by political considerations.  Barro did say that if it is found that the 1,2,3 plan is sound, then placing it the Constitution would not be unusual in light of what other states have done.  However, moving towards that goal too quickly may be regretted if the reforms do not operate as well as intended.

Although it took a little while for the panelists to finally make the point clearly, the bottom line in the property tax debate is not about maximum levies, whether debt is counted towards the allowable levy, the switch from cost-based assessment to market-based assessment, or caps on the tax rate as a percentage of assessed value; instead it is about government spending.  If local governments would cut their budget and chose to allocate resources more efficiently, tax rates could be lowered.

When the discussion turned to the size and scope of local government, Mayor Jeff Rea ably made the case for why citizens need to know what they expect from their government before they seek to lobby for substantial changes in the tax system.  Although he has done an excellent job of growing the city of Mishawaka while controlling the growth of city government, he has had to manage cases of where the public demanded that a particular service or amenity be provided even though it resulted in substantial costs with only limited corresponding benefit to the community.

After nearly two hours of discussion the panel came to a close with interesting ideas being presented and exchanged on all sides.  With events like this the St. Joseph County Republican Party is showing that even though Republicans may be out of power locally, they can certainly develop meaningful policy ideas and shape the direction of public debate.  To Chris Riley, Lindsey Mustard, and the staff, officers and volunteers of the St. Joseph County Republican Party: Carry on, because your example is setting the bar for what must take place to renew our party at the local level all across America.

 

The Road to Resurgence Requires a New Chairman

Editor’s Note:  Reclaim Our Heritage is not a Republican entity, but a conservative one.  However, the political party that most aligns with conservatism is the Republican Party and as such most of those who contribute to this blog are active within the Republican Party.  We do not endorse every Republican, but we do endorse conservatives.

By: Brian Sikma

The upcoming Republican National Committee Chairman election is unlike any other RNC Chairman race in the history of the Republican Party.  While past Chairman elections were affairs limited to Party insiders and RNC Committee members (those who actually select the Chairman), this race has seen an unprecedented effort on the part of almost all of the candidates to reach out to party activists and those who may be insiders in their own right at the local and state level.

No doubt the innovations in information sharing and networking spurred on by the further development of the internet as a tool of communication and activism have contributed substantially to the increased openness of the internal process.  Also the very public embarrassment of two election cycles in a row that were progressively worse for Republicans has stimulated a widespread debate about the future of the party.   This in turn has lead to a debate among the RNC Chairman candidates about the best way to bring the party out of the political wilderness and into the position of governing.

Although I am not a member of the Republican National Committee and will not be voting on who the next Chairman will be, I am endorsing a particular candidate in this race.  After giving each of the candidates careful thought I have concluded that Katon Dawson, the current Chairman of the South Carolina GOP, is the best candidate for the job of leading the Republican National Committee for the next four years.  Accordingly, I urge Indiana’s voting delegation to the RNC to vote for Katon Dawson as the next RNC Chairman at the January meeting of the Committee.

My reasons for endorsing Dawson are both principled and pragmatic.  As Chairman of the South Carolina GOP the Republican party won 80% of the races in which it fielded candidates.  Under Dawson’s leadership the SCGOP raised record amounts of money for its candidates and saw new breakthroughs in outreach to constituencies too long overlooked by the Republican Party.  But winning elections and raising money only count for something when you stand for something, and that’s where Dawson’s commitment to the principles of limited government, a strong national defense, and traditional bedrock values come in.  Not only has he successfully led a state party organization to success, he has also stood for a message that is worth  standing for and believing in.

One of Dawson’s greatest strong points in this RNC Chairman race is his Project 3,141 is a positive step forward in rebuilding our party from the bottom up.  Having worked on Republican campaigns and seen county parties in action, I know that an organized county party is a tremendous asset to Republican campaigns and I know that a disorganized and ineffective county party can be a needless and unnecessary drag on Republican campaigns.  There is no substitute for an effective campaign organization, but strong county parties will help us develop the vital local, bottom-up network that we will need to take back the Congress, the Presidency, governorships, and state legislatures.

In endorsing Dawson I have not chosen to disregard the contributions that his competitors for the office are making to the debate.  Saul Anuzis of Michigan has successfully harnessed the internet as a form of political outreach, Michael Steele has a vigorous approach to the issues that is certainly needed in our time, Ken Blackwell has experience as an elected official and elections overseer that is definitely a strong point for our party.  While my endorsement goes to Dawson, I hope that these individuals chose to continue to contribute their knowledge to our party so that together we can forward with and rebuild a party much in need of rebuilding.

Years from now it would be good to look back and say that after the disastrous outcome of the 2008 election, we set out to rebuild and renew our party and didn’t stop until we renewed and revived our country.

 

Not Dead Yet

By: Brian Sikma

If you listen to the right combination of pundits and talking heads, you can be forgiven for concluding that the conservative movement is a thing of the past. As a political force it is a dinosaur outsmarted by the concepts that brought us the election of Senator Barack Obama as our next president. Americans are tired of the economic, national security, and social policies that flow from a conservative governing philosophy. They are ready for a change from these policies and they emphatically rejected these ideas at the ballot box. At least that is how the thinking goes.

In one of his more memorable lines, the great American wit Mark Twain declared “reports of my death are greatly exaggerated” when he responded to the New York Journal’s premature publication of his obituary. Reports of the death of the conservative movement are greatly exaggerated. Conservatism is alive and well and thriving despite electoral setbacks that hit Republicans harder than the unhappy election results of 2006.

Conservatism as a philosophy of government is not dead because the American people still refuse to embrace liberal values. Even as the 2008 election unfolded, a mere 22% of Americans described themselves as “liberal.” The dichotomy between this self-described aversion to liberalism and the election of the most liberal, major party presidential candidate in history as well as very liberal majorities in Congress can be explained this way: voters were tired of Republicans’ failure to govern according to their stated principles.

The American people are a generally forgiving electorate. They do not demand that their leaders agree with them on every issue, but they do require that their leaders agree with them on key issues and they do demand that their leaders be honest. A politician can win reelection even if he or she casts a couple of bad votes. But if politician casts a series of votes that go against the values of his or her constituents, or somehow fails the trust of voters, they will be rejected at the next election. This is a good thing, even if Republicans don’t like how it impacted them in November.

Conservatism will survive into the future. The question is will a political party and its leaders will step up and embrace its core values? I don’t believe that we can expect the Democrat Party, with all of its ties to the far left, to be the party of conservatism. If Republicans take up the cause of conservatism, if Republicans make the conservative values of lower taxes, limited regulations, smaller government, stronger national defense, protection of unborn life, preservation of traditional marriage, and a respect for liberty coupled with a respect for ordered society, their values, they will make a strong comeback.

For Republicans, the recipe for victory is simple: believe in conservative principles and then stand up for those principles. The American people will stand with you because the American people are a center-right people and they are simply waiting for leadership that stands where they stand.

 

Becoming Broad But Not Shallow

By: Brian Sikma

In the wake of November’s disastrous election results, Republicans and conservatives have been pondering their future. Pundits with solutions abound. Going forward, it has been rightly noted, the future of conservatism is not tied to the future of the Republican party. In this time of analysis and internal discussion, the GOP is more in need of rejuvenation than the conservative movement, though work must be done in both camps.

In the conservative movement there are some who are advocating for a new conservatism, one that apparently accepts some of the premises advanced by left-leaning cultural institutions. Some observers argue that conservatives need to move beyond issues like abortion and replace them with issue planks dealing with the need for a green energy future and policies to reduce global warming. It is posited that we must set aside our views on some issues in favor of new causes that supposedly have attracted the public’s attention in ways that now surpass its prior fascination with the issues we have traditionally debated.

Do we really need to accept the underlying left-leaning premises of certain fashionable issues in order to be a relevant philosophy and movement of political, social, and economic thought? In other words, with respect to global warming must we accept the belief that man-generated activity is causing global warming? Must we really accept the “fact” that global warming is occurring beyond the very normal cyclical heating and cooling of the earth as a result of human activity? If conservatism is going to be relevant, it does not mean that we must follow the line of thinking suggested by some writers and confuse expanding our appeal with accepting dubious “facts” promoted by the left.

Do not misunderstand the point in all of this. Conservatives should indeed have views on environmental policy. But just as our position on the environment should not be one of simply dismissing the matter, our position should not be one that accepts fallacies that are untrue and make a genuinely conservative approach to this issue very hard. We cannot risk becoming irrelevant by failing to advocate for conservative, common-sense approaches to new issues, but doing that does not mean that we must accept unfounded claims no matter how popular they may be in some quarters.

But what of those issues that conservatives have long cared about but we are now told do not matter? The sanctity of human life, a debate that has taken on new proportions as the dimensions of science have expanded, and the importance of traditional marriage in a stable and vibrant society are two issues that appear to be “on the ropes” right now. Some contend that the matter of abortion is now too gruesome a subject to talk about. It is an old issue that has been hashed and rehashed and since it is no longer as relevant as other issues (so the argument goes), it should be at best minimized and at worst simply discarded. The same argument is applied to the gay-marriage versus traditional-marriage debate. Can’t we just move beyond these prickly issues that involve important relationship decisions between individuals in their private lives? The dangers inherent in following this wisdom should not be underestimated.

As we look for ways to revive our movement we should not cast aside those moral and social issues that helped lead to the birth of our movement in the first place. For fiscal conservatives and those of libertarian leanings, you should not forget the abortion issue or disregard those who are battling to preserve the definition of traditional marriage. For social conservatives, you should not let your deep commitment to demanding that government respect certain fundamental and basic human rights and institutions carry you to the point of ignoring those who work hard to control the size of government and defend economic freedom.

As a movement, we must broaden our appeal without becoming shallow in our thinking.