Boldness

Matt Towery has a recommendation for the Republican Party in his latest article. It's that they should be bold. Specifically they should put forth ideas. Bold ideas. Four bold ideas that Towery would like to see the Republicans champion.

1. Term limits for congressional types. I don't have a strong feeling about this one, one way or another. The issue isn't term limits, however, the really issue is gerrymandering. How many congressional districts in the United States are really contestable and how many are cut in such a way as to be "safe" for one party or the other? But that's another issue; at any rate, this is nice, but not going to set the world on fire.

2. The Fair Tax. By the fair tax they mean a flat tax - this would lower the tax burden on the wealthy and possibly raise it on the working class. It would mean that the government would have to spend less money, which means they would have to cut services (presumably services which disproportionately benefit the working class).

3. Eliminate federal agencies and consolidate others. As referenced earlier, whether or not Towery specifically wants to make life harder on the working and middle class, that would probably be the end result, as programs that benefit them are scaled back or eliminated.

4. Start a program to restore American Manufacturing Dominance.

Provide a list of laws to be eliminated, incentives to be provided and a definitive means of measuring progress. We will forever be beholden to countries such as China to provide capital for our treasury if they continue to grow a manufacturing-strong economy while we become a nation where basically everyone trades dollar bills for providing services to one another.

This is the most interesting to me. Because how does China beat us currently? They treat their employees terribly, paying them little, and working them hard. Right now, American workers are far more expensive than Chinese ones. American Workers have to be paid well, have to have benefits, have to have safe working conditions, have limits in how long they can work and so on and so forth. Chinese workers are a bargain comparatively speaking.

Now as a soft-headed liberal I think to myself, "Well something needs to be done to give those Chinese workers a leg up." But I'm guessing Towery, as a hard-headed Conservative, probably isn't thinking along those lines. Possibly he believes that we can innovate faster than the Chinese, improve our manufacturing processes such that we can continue employing expensive American workers and still out perform Chinese plants. But just as likely he believes that American Workers have it too easy and are too protected. If we remove those protections, eliminate that "list of laws" he references (and I'm not even mentioning the environmental laws), if we make America a bit more like the third world, well, than things will really take off.

Balancing the Ticket

Matt Towery's latest article takes the progressive step of acknowledging that all of the various candidates have potential problems with how people see them. McCain is old, Clinton is a Woman, and Obama is a black. All of them are facing problems because of who they are. He argues that McCain should pick a good Republican woman to balance out the ticket and to pick up those women annoyed that Hillary Clinton didn't get the nod.

Then he makes this interesting statement.

There's another bias in this country -- regional bias. Though it's become less fashionable to say so out loud, many Americans still view the South as being knee-jerk racist, not to mention generally backward and unsophisticated. Southern accents still get plenty of good ribbing. After all, they don't call former President Clinton "President Bubba" for nothing.

I guess that's true - the South does get a pretty good rubbing on occasion. But, Towery, they dish it out too. I mean California is the land of homosexual kooks and New York and the North East practically a Communist Country down here. And frankly the attacks that the South has made on other parts of this nation are more hurtful then the attacks they've had to suffer. Hell you practically can't get to be president without being from the south - while Northeasterners have a lot harder time.

I like this sort of talk

Matt Towery's latest article is very heartwarming (for liberals). He comments on how Republicans have apparently failed to do what they were supposed to do.

I could name you plenty of members of Congress who promised limit terms. Most are either still there, were defeated, or just couldn't avoid the lure of making big money, by lobbying and such, while their colleagues were still in power.

As far as reducing government, what a joke! The GOP has helped create endless additional laws and spent wild amounts of money in the same manner as the Democrats we used to criticize.

And as for the so-called "neocons," thanks a lot. Having to listen to these mean-spirited, myopic D.C.-based know-it-alls is insufferable. The biggest joke is that they talk about issues no one cares about while the rest of the country is focused on reality. It took these insulated prigs months and months to figure out that there was a housing crisis. That's because in D.C. the local economy thrives -- because of its proximity to power and wealth.

Republicans have a lousy cast of leading candidates this year. It's just that simple. Not that the Democrats are anything to brag about, but that's their problem. Just think: These candidates have spent half their time talking about an immigration issue in a state, Iowa, where there is no immigration problem.

Right on. All the Republicans do kind of suck.

Further Thoughts on Bush and Iraq

Cal Thomas echoes President Bush's desire that we give Gen. Petraeus a chance to turn the war in Iraq around, in his latest article. He also repeats Bush's contention that now that we are in Iraq we have to win.

. . . the political season has begun and between Democratic politicians who are conducting their own insurgency against a weakened president - a president they have helped weaken by their non-support of the war effort - and a few Republican politicians whose only interest seems to be not the establishment of a stable Iraq, but the preservation of their jobs - reasonableness has become a casualty of this struggle.

One minor correction - the Political Season is pretty well constant.

Thomas urges the President to open a surge of rhetoric against his political enemies, to show the American people the consequences of failure in Iraq. Perhaps President Bush should have considered the consequences of failure a bit more before invading.

For a contrasting view, let's check out Matt Towery's latest article about the effect of President Bush's intransigence in Iraq on the Republican Party.

This White House simply will not admit that their plan for stabilizing Iraq has failed. Tap-dancing around the inevitable for another year likely will accomplish nothing more than politically weakening or destroying the very people who have been the most supportive of our military, and of the fight against terrorism.

But don't take my word for it. Ask the stream of strategists and veteran staff who are bailing out of Sen. John McCain's foundering campaign.

I maintain now what I always have: First, that George W. Bush is a decent, honorable human being. Second, that he has been catastrophically undermined and misled by various advisers and staff, to say nothing of Dick Cheney. Their collective attitude has been "the public be damned." Well, now the public "damns" the president in return. According to one national survey this week, Bush has a 26 percent approval rating.

Oy. That doesn't sound good does it? So should President continue, full steam ahead? Or should he admit his error and let the Republican Party work with Democrats to correct his errors?

The first option is more likely, regardless of what the right answer is.

Republicans Struggle

Matt Towery offers the heartening suggestion that President Bush's dedication to the immigration compromise bill might hurt or destroy the Grand Old Party.

It's already clear that Republican candidates in the 2008 season will face a difficult political climate in light of the continued war in Iraq and the overall low job-approval ratings for President Bush. Now the president apparently wants to ensure the collapse of his party by attempting to drag GOP Senators over the cliff and into the abyss of his current immigration reform bill.

Multiple InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion surveys indicate that a majority of voters in numerous states, particularly those "red" Southern states the GOP desperately needs in order to have any prayer of holding on to the White House, oppose the president's immigration bill.

I feel for Mr. Towery, but I'm not sure the situation is as dire as all this. Bush can't run again and he's got no heir among the candidates running (closest you get to that is Mitt Romney). All three Republican candidates can walk away from the President on this one, which will help them both with the Red Staters you are worried about and with those on the fence. Disagreeing with an unpopular President like Bush isn't a bad strategy.

Of course they do have to hope that America doesn't twig to the fact that when it comes to war, they are exactly the same as Bush.

Trouble with a Capital T

Not because it's a big deal, just because it's the first word of a sentence.

Matt Towery has written an article on the Confederate Flag and South Carolina. Apparently the Confederate flag issue that had been pretty big a couple of years back is now a big issue again. And as he points out this isn't exactly good news to the Republican nominees.

That means another round of hot-seat questions in a year in which race is emerging as an obvious factor in the presidential race, what with Barack Obama being biracial. He has certainly enthused the black community, and his charismatic presence and lack of political baggage has many Americans of all races seriously considering a black man for president.

. . . Look for this perpetual controversy to transfer to South Carolina in time for the primary campaign.

I will note two additional facts. In 2000 George W. Bush kowtowed to the base in South Carolina (i.e. those who wanted the Confederate flag to remain over the capitol), and he won the race. While I admit it might be a landmine for Guiliani and McCain, I don't think that deciding to play to the base there will hurt them in the main campaign, unless Obama is the candidate.

Secondly, the controversy would seem to be a real opportunity for Obama. It's not a layup; rather he has to show that his talk about unity is more than just talk, while reminding the Black community that he really is one of them. It requires a certain amount of finesse, but it seems clear that Obama possesses finesse in spades.

Guiliani has nowhere to go but down

That seems to be the theme of Matt Towery's latest article, and I'm not sure he's wrong. Particularly if Gingrich or Fred Thompson enter the race, everything he brings to the table would seem to be eclipsed by someone else. The only thing Guiliani has at the moment is that he's on the top of the pile. Which is, admittedly, a pretty big advantage.

I have to say I don't entirely buy Towery's argument. For one thing he argues that Romney is more electable than Guiliani. That just doesn't seem accurate. He also says that Gingrich will challenge him by having more innovative ideas. That's not entirely true either. Well it's true as far as it goes; I'm sure Gingrich does have some innovative bad ideas. But that's not the threat he represents. He is actually a threat because hes an actual conservative and Guiliani's conservative credentials are not as strong as they might be.

He also compares Guiliani to Dean which I don't see either. Obviously "the Dean Scream" has been overplayed, but the truth is that Dean was running a bit of a maverick campaign. He was a bit of a threat to the powers that be. Guiliani might seem threatening to the Republican base but he's not any kind of threat to the party. He'll be a party man on the campaign trail and in the White House. And he's a mainstream candidate, while Dean was seen as more of an extremist (he wasn't, as it turns out, just right about the war too early).

A Rallying Cry

So I know a lot of Republicans are a bit down in the mouth about this election cycle. Fortunately help is on the way, thanks to a new article by Matt Towery.

Here's the skinny, folks: The Republicans have held power for too long, and grown cocky and lazy. Bush strutted around defiantly. Republican leadership took a Nixonian, siege-mentality approach to the press. Bad things got worse. Now they may lose Congress.

Even so, absent the issue of personalities, political style and the like, a neutral scorecard based on policies makes at least a modest case to return the GOP to power.

A modest case! Let that be your rallying cry, Republicans.

A Modest Case! To the Barricades!

The United Nations

There certainly is plenty of red meat out there this week for the Republican faithful. Both Iranian President Ahmadinejad and Venezuelan President Chavez spoke at the United Nations, and Chavez's speech in particular was a passionate attack on President Bush (whom he called the devil). So you have lesser countries annoying the United States at the United Nations? Yeah that's a nice nexus if you are a conservative columnist.

This is the subject of Matt Towery's latest article - in which he explicitly argues that the United States should quit the United Nations. We aren't getting anything out of it, and continuing to be a member of it only legitimizes the people who are running it (one of which is the United States, of course, but let that slide).

But when we've finally reached the point that a room full of international freeloaders are applauding wildly as our president is called the Devil and our demise is predicted, then it's time to seriously reassess whom we want to deal with, in what manner and in what international forum.

He proposes a new coalition - presumably something like the coalition of the willing. In fairness he seems to be a bit of an isolationist, so he probably doesn't see the need for as much international cooperation as a Bush policy of invading the crap out of everything would.

But I don't think the United States is a quitting nation. While the United Nations has problems (and Chavez really did go to far), I don't think we are going to walk away from it.

Get on Board!

As you presumably know, Harry Reid and Congressional Democrats shut down the business of the senate earlier this week, in order to move forward the Senate Investigation into the intelligence that lead us into Iraq. Said Harry Reid (according to Salon), "After months and months and months of begging, cajoling and writing letters, we're finally going to have Phase II of the investigation into how the intelligence was used to lead us into this intractable war in Iraq."

In a shocking turn of events, Conservatives don't approve of this tactic. In his latest article, Matt Towery argues that this sort of stunt makes Democrats look like obstructinists and opportunists.

The stunt achieved nothing. If anything, it may one day be looked back on as the day the American public started to take a more positive view of President Bush and the Republicans again.

Yes, a White House indictment and a withdrawn Supreme Court nominee have Republicans on the run.

Even so, the public often senses when opportunistic politicians are trying to reach too far to score partisan blows.

This is the paradoxical difficulty of being the minority party. You can't actually enact your program except in tiny bits and pieces. The best you can hope for is to slow down the other sides program, and bring to light the other sides missteps and wrong doing.

But if you do that you are open to charges of obstructionism, opportunism, and not having a program of your own. Particularly by a party and a movement that realizes the American people's frustration with them. A party and a movement that would very much like to change the subject.

Liberal America Doesn't Give a Damn About the South

This is the message of Matt Towery's latest article. Doubt me? Here's the last of paragraph of said article.

But this week, I speak the words no one else wants to say: The South has been hit with the equivalent of a nuclear bomb. And too much of America didn't want to notice until it had to.

There's a lot I could say about this, but too much of it would be mean-spirted and hurtful; so I'll just suggest that Mr. Towery stacks the deck a bit in his presentation in order to reach this answer.

More Election News

Matt Towery, writing today at Townhall.com, says, "Bush's only potential Achilles heel remains the economy. That possibility has political pundits wondering whether they can go ahead and script a Bush post-war nosedive -- a la Bush senior in 1992 -- or if the president's re-election campaign will more closely resemble the GOP landslides of Nixon in '72 and Reagan in '84."

I don't know, I see another couple of potential roadblocks. It's clear that there is a power struggle going on between Colin Powell's State Department and Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department. If either side wins decisively, than it could have negative repercussions. If Rumsfeld wins, than Bush will lose one of the few moderating forces in his presidency, and if Colin Powell is humiliated, and Bush Lets it happen, well, the Democratic candidate doesn't have to be a political genius to exploit that. If Colin Powell wins, which, let's be honest, has no chance of happening, than Bush will lose his base, and might lose the war as an issue--Rumsfeld has cleverly positioned himself as the military face of this administration.

The other potential problem is that Bush may have ceded the centrist position. He may be forced to run as an ideological conservative, which liberals may be able to turn into an issue. This is more of a long shot though.

And at any rate, we have nearly a year before the actual campaign starts, so we'll see what happens in between now and then.

Politics

Interesting article by Matt Towry about Karl Rove. Apparently, there has been some criticism of President Bush's policy of keeping his closest political advisor in the white House. Matt Towry disputes such thinking, and speculates that the forthcoming election may require Rove's assistance.

He then concludes with this sentence, "Like him or not, Karl Rove -- in the storied tradition of Bobby Kennedy and Hamilton Jordan -- is good not only for the president he serves, but for the policies being put forth for consumption by the body politic."

You may not remember Hamilton Jordan--but he was an advisor to President Jimmy Carter, who in recent months has become the Rights favorite whipping boy. It's unusual that Rove would be compared to Jordan in a conservative article. Jordan's magic didn't ensure a second term for Carter, as I recall, nor were the policies he and President Carter the sorts of things that Conservatives find praiseworthy.

Reality TV On the Way Out

According to Matt Towery, Reality TV is on the way out. Towery also says that Survivor is the first reality TV show, so maybe you can't take his words at face value. Before Survivor there was both the Real World and Road Rules on MTV, as well as other shows.

You see it all goes back to the Gong Show. The Gong Show revealed that people would happily humiliate themselves for the chance to be on TV. It also revealed that such shows eliminated a lot of the overhead. No writers for example. No Actors. They are very cheap. I think even if their ratings slip, reality tv is here to stay because of it's cheapness.

Towery does bring up the forthcoming real "Beverly Hillbillies" show. "One show that's still in the planning stages has already earned a tongue-lashing on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Georgia Democratic Sen. Zell Miller gave an impassioned speech to his colleagues deploring a proposed show that would move a family of real "hillbillies" out to Beverly -- Hills, that is, in California. You know, swimming pools, movie stars. Miller, proud of his own mountain heritage, correctly pointed out the denigrating and pitiful quality of such drivel." Towery's right on this one--I can't believe they are even considering it.

I don't know. Reality shows don't interest me truth to tell. But even if they did, I wouldn't watch them, for about the same reason I wouldn't have gone to the Roman Coliseum to see Christians torn apart by Lions.