Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
-Sir Winston Churchill, Speech in the House of Commons, 11 Nov 1947
Bienvenue.
I had the occasion to participate in the Illinois primaries on Tuesday, which brought the above quote to mind. Democracy is an untidy mess, to be sure, and in very few places untidier than in the Prairie State. The state of politics here is sobering, and half-measures are not called for. I have heard the calls for party unity in the wake of the primaries (if it is proper to speak of such a thing, given that fully four races are eligible for recount), and I know that the estimable Doctor has made his skepticism concerning third parties known in the past. I’m not here to call for a third party . . . but, nevertheless, many of you may be concerned, or even angered, by what I am here to say. I invite your commentary.
I live in the St. Louis Metro-East area, and our local conservative radio morning host is named Jamie Allman. You may have heard of him; he has subbed for Laura Ingraham in the past. At any rate, Mr. Allman has over the last couple of days struck an interesting theme: namely, that now is the time for conservatives to move to define the Republican Party. The compelling comparison that he brings to the table is to the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, where the “moderate” followers of Hubert Humphrey collided with the liberal, anti-war adherents of Eugene McCarthy in a conflagration that, among other things, paved the way for the Democrats’ crushing defeat at the hands of Richard Nixon. There is a real potential for an analogous scenario for the Republicans in 2012, he has been saying, and the best way to avoid it is for conservatives to have taken the party by then. I occasionally have issues with Mr. Allman, but on this point I would almost call him visionary.
So what is to be done? The obvious point to wage this campaign would be at the primary level. However, the course of the primaries is still largely determined by the state and national Republican committees, and by Republican officeholders. This brings me to yesterday’s Illinois primaries. There are some lessons here, and some things to ponder, many of them bitter.
Let’s get straight to the elephant in the room: Mark Kirk. Actually, he’s only nominally entitled to that appellation; he’s more like the RINO in the room. As you’re no doubt aware, Congressman Kirk (it would be more fun to refer to him by his Naval Reserve rank, Commander Kirk, but I’ll forbear) won the Republican nomination for the U. S. Senate seat formerly held by President Obama and currently warmed by Roland Burris. Congressman Kirk collected 57% of the vote, nearly forty points higher than the runner-up, Patrick Hughes, this despite the endorsement of Mr. Hughes by many Tea Party-related organizations. This is remarkable insofar as Congressman Kirk had a 100% rating from NARAL prior to voting in favor of the Stupak amendment to the House health-care bill three months ago (including a vote against the partial-birth abortion ban); was one of the eight Republican congressmen to vote for the House cap-and-trade bill, which passed by seven votes; and has been a strident supporter of gun-control legislation.
So . . . given that any one of the three positions above would seem to be anathema to the Republican Party, how exactly did Congressman Kirk come to acquire the nomination? Well, he was recruited by the Illinois Republican Party – the same group that managed to hand the Democrats every single statewide office in Illinois – because of his “moderate” appeal and his popularity in the Chicagoland region. His candidacy was boosted by Republican U. S. congressmen such as John Shimkus, my own congressman, an otherwise stalwart conservative who in this instance let collegiality and the siren song of “electability” come before principle. The election scenario was propitious for Congressman Kirk – in order to provide President Obama with a major early success in the 2008 primaries, the Democrat-controlled Legislature moved the Illinois primary date up to the first Tuesday in February. This allowed only one month to campaign after the holiday season, which hindered the ability of grassroots groups to mount an effective advertising and canvassing campaign and handed a huge advantage to the Establishment candidate, particularly since he was already well-known in Chicago. Faced with the united front of the Republican Establishment, with few resources and no time to coordinate with friendly groups, Mr. Hughes was doomed. The parallels between Congressman Kirk’s nomination and that of Dede Scozzafava in New York’s 23rd District are striking.
Also as in the case of Mrs. Scozzafava, now that the Establishment candidate has been chosen, national endorsements have poured in, and the conservative Republican electorate is urged to put aside its differences with the candidate for the good of party and country. Other conservatives across the country who might otherwise take umbrage at the nomination are entirely focused on the remote possibility of a Republican takeover of the Senate, and are already savoring the prospect of a Republican taking the seat previously held by President Obama in the same year that Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts took the seat held for four decades by Edward M. Kennedy. Senator Brown himself is not the archetypal conservative, and we are told that the other Republican success stories, Governors Bob McDonnell of Virginia and Chris Christie of New Jersey, won by downplaying any conservative credentials that they may have had. At any rate, the defense concludes, Illinois is the Massachusetts of the Midwest, the California of the Corn; no conservative could be elected here anyway, so swallowing a pro-abortion, pro-cap-and-trade, pro-gun-control agenda is a small price to pay to have another vote for Republican Senate leadership, and to have a fiscal conservative in the upper chamber.
Let’s take a look at some of these points. While it may be gratifying in the sense of schadenfreude for a putative Republican to take the president’s former seat, of how much real value is it? If the Republicans fail to take an outright majority in the Senate, for all intents and purposes, 41 seats are almost as good as 49. True, an extended minority might be useful if a RINO, maybe of the Maine variety, bolted to the Democrats. However, based on the above positions held by Congressman Kirk, name one scenario in which the treacherous RINO would be any less likely to be him than Senators Snowe or Collins.
Even if the Republicans were to take control of the Senate with Kirk (which would involve a net change of ten seats, or ten percent of the entire chamber – a historic number), what does that leave us with? The same Senate leadership that frittered away the Republican Revolution of 1994, for starters. It leaves a Senate with a thin Republican majority, still against a president of the other party (which leaves judicial nominations out of the equation), that will bear partial responsibility for the train wreck that will attend the president’s economic agenda but will not be able to materially affect it due to the filibuster and the veto. Finally, we will have acquired a Senator likely to bolt on the president’s signature initiative after health-care: climate-change legislation.
Speaking of that last item, wasn’t getting a “fiscal conservative” into the Senate on our list? Perhaps someone would like to try to square “fiscal conservatism” with “cap-and-trade.” As commentators such as Mark Steyn and our own Doctor Zero have remarked, being a “fiscally conservative moderate” means that you have no problem in principle with what the other side wants to do – you’d just like to do it cheaper. The “cheaper” part is usually subject to “negotiation.” Oh, I almost forgot – Congressman Kirk is on record as saying that although he voted for cap-and-trade as a Congressman, he would vote against cap-and-trade as a Senator. I wonder when he’s going to squeeze in time for windsurfing lessons during the campaign . . .
The most damaging part of this argument, though, is the contention that conservatives must “go underground” in order to win elections, and that in Illinois in particular, a conservative can’t win. To the extent that Governors McDonnell and Christie, and Senator Brown, are used to support this argument, I would say that it is a disservice to them. Governor McDonnell ran a positive campaign that emphasized job creation, but while he didn’t emphasize his positions on social issues, he didn’t hide them, either; even were he so inclined, Creigh Deeds, President Obama, and the national media would not have allowed it. The same could be said concerning Governor Christie, a pro-life, tough-on-crime conservative in a very liberal state. While Senator Brown expressed some pro-Roe sentiments early in his career, he backed off of them soon enough and sincerely enough to be supported by Massachusetts Citizens for Life, and has otherwise staked out a pro-military, tough-on-crime, fiscally conservative position, again in a very liberal state.
Regarding the ability of Illinoisans to vote for a conservative candidate, this is belied by the results of the primaries for governor and lieutenant governor. At the moment, the leader in the gubernatorial primary is Bill Brady, a state senator from Bloomington. Senator Brady is a Roman Catholic, staunchly pro-life, tough-on-crime candidate who polled at nine percent just two weeks ago. The plethora of Chicago machine politicians in the primary divided the vote and made a downstate candidate with the courage of his convictions an appealing choice, and Brady established a lead of 420 votes over the runner-up, Chicago lawyer and state senator Kirk Dillard. This will almost certainly be challenged, and, unfortunately, a politician from Chicago generally walks around with that many votes in his pocket. Nonetheless, even if he loses in the recount, Senator Brady’s surge demonstrates pent-up demand for a conservative voice. The Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, Jason Plummer, is a similarly conservative 27-year-old businessman from Edwardsville. To say that no one will vote for a conservative candidate in the face of this evidence is disingenuous at best; cynical and defeatist are two more accurate terms. This view also ignores history; the man whom President Obama succeeded as Senator, Peter Fitzgerald, was a conservative with strong pro-life and pro-law-enforcement views, along with a healthy suspicion of Washington.
So, again, what is to be done? The die is cast in Illinois; Mark Kirk is the nominee. No Midwestern Doug Hoffman is going to rise to lead the way away from the Dede Scozzafava of the Prairie. In the light of my case above, should conservatives hold their collective nose and vote for Congressman Kirk, if for no other reason that he has the (R) after his name? I suppose it goes back to Mr. Allman’s point, with which I began this post – what kind of party do we want? If, against the odds, Senator Brady and Mr. Plummer win the election and revitalize the Illinois GOP, are we better off with Congressman Kirk as the incumbent Republican Senator from Illinois, against whom then-Governor Brady would have a difficult time organizing a primary fight in 2016? What, really, do Illinois conservatives have to lose by standing on principle in this case? At worst, we continue our nearly unbroken tradition of sending Democratic Senators to Washington one more time – no net loss to the GOP. When Alexi Giannoulias votes in favor of cap-and-trade, we won’t have to cast down our gaze and admit that we were the ones that sent him there, as we would almost certainly have to with Congressman Kirk. Most importantly, when the time comes to elect a challenger to Richard Durbin, the leaders of the Illinois Republican Party will understand that the next Mark Kirk will be defeated, and will proceed with greater attention to the principles of their constituents. As a result, I urge Illinois conservatives to leave the vote for U. S. Senate blank on their ballots, as I intend to.
As I said, our fate in Illinois is sealed. However, if there is a silver lining to our dark cloud, it is that we were the first primary, and other conservatives can learn from our experience. The primary turnout in Illinois on Tuesday was 21% . . . and Mark Kirk is now our nominee. Take the trouble to find out the positions of your candidates. Don’t trust your state parties; their eyes are entirely on votes, not at all on principles. Do your homework, and go vote. Build local and state parties that reflect your values and principles, force them up to the national level, and we can avoid the grim specter of Chicago ’68.
It was not my intention in the beginning to discuss electoral politics twice in a row, nor at such length. To borrow language from Tocqueville, my next post will concern principles more and interests less. It should be shorter, as well. In the meantime, I know that what I’ve said will not be without controversy; I welcome your comments and rebuttals. Thank you for your attention and perseverance – as always, I hope the read was worth your time and effort.
I have ALWAYS said, it is infinitely better for Conservatives to have a real live socialist/Marxist DEMOCRAT sitting in Congress than a Demo-lite RINO. RINOs confuse the electorate. Let the Dems show their true colors like the current Congress has done. RINOs just muddy the waters.
Vote BLANK for Illinois US Senate!
You state that Kirk is a RINO.
Honorable RINO’s place pragmatism, not self-interest, ahead of principle. They prioritize the principle of what is achievable ahead of other principles. They argue, that the first consideration should be, what can be done within the circumstances that exist?
(On principle, I may favor the elimination of the IRS but that is not achievable, so what is gained by making that a linchpin of my candidacy?)
I think that, when considering all aspects of an issue, to place pragmatism ahead of principle is generally to place the cart before the horse. That said, does pragmatism have no place at the table? If it does have a place, then that implies there may well be times when pragmatic considerations override principle. For instance, I believe that no American really ‘supports’ torture but I accept that if circumstance is serious enough, it may be the only way to save thousands or even possibly millions.
I also accept that you can’t fight by the Marquis of Queensberry’s rules (no hitting below the belt) in a knife or gun fight. In war, you fight as dirty as the other guy because losing entails allowing a greater evil to manifest than the abandonment of peacetime principle entails. I do not accept that fighting as dirty as the Nazi’s (which we frequently did) made us as bad as the Nazi’s because an overriding difference remains; what we were fighting for…
In a blue state, a “California of Corn”, the question is whether voters have previously and are disagreeing with the premises that motivate conservatives. If so, then nominating Hughes would be an exercise in futility and Kirk is the best that Illinois can hope for, as when voters disagree with your premises, no amount of persuasion can convince them to support your view.
Until and unless you can get them to agree with your premises, argument is useless. (That is why the abortion debate rages, the two sides disagree as to their basic premises and, so they literally talk ‘past’ one another with each speaking verbal nonsense as far as the other is concerned, and it is also a perfect illustration of why philosophy and logic are important in the real world)
Thus, in the case of a state where the majority of the population are liberal and where the election of a strong conservative is a non-starter, the sole consideration becomes, what is in the Party’s interest?
Rather than fight the ‘unwinnable’ fight, your only recourse may be to move to another state. If you refuse that option, then whether you accept the reality or not, you in effect are a Don Quixote, tilting at windmills…
Let me ad one other important thought. Pragmatism should always be in service of principle. What can be realistically accomplished, given a set of circumstances is always a valid question. It is when pragmatism has no purpose consistent with principle wherein the error and problem lies.
I feel your pain, I really do, but when push comes to shove in a 2 party system, sitting out is a vote for the opposition, a fool’s errand. I sense, along with the distinct flavor of sour grapes, that long term pragmatism and incremantal progress is being shoved aside in favor of short term all-or-nothing puristic zeal.
Making the perfect the enemy of the adequate-for-now is a sure recipe for continued minority status, a price the author here seems to find acceptable. I say do what you can with what you’ve got. Like the beleagured chef once said; if you run out of butter, use margarine.
I also think you underestimate the potential damage a Republican taking Obamas seat will do. When you see how Brown has them quaking already I think the fallout from that would be at least 4 orders of magnitude worse. And it’s not just the scaudenfreude, I think it has the potential of escalating Obamas mere failure to an unmitigated disaster that could set back progressivism for a long time if not for good.
The article has 3 faulty suppositions
1) That the formerly moderate Scott Brown is now a conservative but somehow Kirk is incapable of making a similar transition.
2) That Kirk lied when he promised to vote against cap and trade as a Senator.. he can’t know that, and secondly, aren’t the odds better by reminding Kirk to vote as promised still better that a sure vote the other way?
3) Greater Chicago has nearly 10 of Illinois 13 million population. Congratulations on the downstate winns but get real, unless you can explain how a low turnout where three quarters of the population is deep deep red helps conservatives.
In battle ceding ground should only happen to either enhance the possibility of victory or delay defeat. Put another way, any gain is better than any loss. The article here seems to be arguing losing is no worse than winning, and winning for its own sake has no value. I humbly submit it is better to hold your nose now and Kirks feet to the fire later than to forfeit. A blank ballot might as well be checked Democrat since the effect is the same.
If those strong conservative showings downstate are not anomalous and are a sign of emergence keep your puristic putter sheathed, ready, but in the bag. In the meantime use the pragmatic longer irons to get it close. There’s no sense in supplying the enemy with fresh blood when they’ve only just begun to bleed.
@Scott Patchin:
I’ve been advised by some to stay out of the fray and let the commenters comment, and I think that’s good advice. However, you picked up on something that I phrased inartfully, so I’m going to take the liberty of clarifying my position. I don’t believe that capturing the Senate is a worthless goal in and of itself; that would just be silly. However, since Republicans are nine seats down in the chamber, I think it’s fair to assume that if they were to assume the majority, Congressman Kirk would be a (or the) marginal vote. That being the case, the question becomes whether a 51-50 Democratic majority without Kirk is preferable to a 51-49 Republican majority with him. Congressman Kirk is in favor of partial-birth abortion, cap-and-trade (no matter what he says that he would do now, he was in fact a decisive vote on this issue in the House when it mattered), and gun control. Senators Snowe and Collins are already, to be charitable, unsteady votes on these matters. So I ask myself: is it better for a Democrat or a Republican to cast the deciding vote in favor of these? My position is that in that event, I would rather not have voted for either. When someone asks me how there’s a dime’s worth of difference between a Democrat and a Republican, I would like to be proud to explain my decision to him or her.
Again, it really isn’t my intention to argue the point, but I wasn’t terribly happy with that part of the piece, so I wanted to explain myself a bit better. Thanks for commenting.
“Thus, in the case of a state where the majority of the population are liberal and where the election of a strong conservative is a non-starter, the sole consideration becomes, what is in the Party’s interest? ”
Is it in the Party’s best interest to elect conflicting votes? I attended the Redstate gathering last August in Atlanta primarily to hear Florida’s Conservative candidate Marco Rubio who also made an argument against ‘the contention that conservatives must “go underground” in order to win elections” He further elaborated how dismayed he was to find himself running as an ‘insurgent Conservative’ within the establishment’s Republican Party.
At that same gathering I had an opportunity to meet privately with Pat Toomey who is running for the Senate seat in PA (I am one of those big donor types) and mentioned my admiration for Marco Rubio. Mr Toomey responded by saying that ‘Rubio cannot win’. Suffice to say, I was dispirited by such pronouncement of defeatism.
At that moment I thought to myself, if Liberal-voter Crist wins the Florida senate seat of what value is Toomey’s fiscal-Conservative vote should he win the PA Senate seat?
I decided to pour my big donations into Rubio’s campaign and let the establishment GOP Party take care of Toomey; I am loving the fact that Rubio’s insurgent Conservatism is upsetting the establishment GOP!
By the way; the reminder of my big donor campaign cash is going directly into SarahPAC where I know the money will be used as an effective force for good.
One last point; the case is often made that the majority of Americans are primarily interested in preserving good economic health while ‘social issues’ are unimportant.
The argument goes Fiscal Conservatism ie small government-low tax is more important to Americans than Social Liberalism ie abortion, same-sex union between opposite sex, universal health care
I live in NY (specifically NYC) the blues blue state which birthed Stalin’s Red Diaper babies at the dawn of the 20th century (Radical Son by David Horowitz is an excellent read on the subject)
I think Larry Kudlow would make an excellent fiscal-Conservative candidate to take Sen Schumer’s (Stalinist Red Diaper NYC Democrat) seat unfortunately I know that The Party of Death in NY would NEVER vote for the ideal fiscal-Conservative Larry Kudlow because Mr Kudlow is pro-life.
I make the case that even when faced with disastrous economic wreck and ruin the Party of Death will still continue to take every action necessary to defeat life before they would ever take steps to save their economic well-being.
People argue that their main concern is economic well-being however their constant vote against economic well-being for the sake of defending their Social Liberal policies disproves their argument that their main concern is about fiscal Conservative small government.
I find Libertarian voters to be more disingenuous than Liberals when attempting to argument their case about small government fiscal-Conservatism.
For example; The Libertarian Party of Pot, Porn and Dealing Dirty with Dictators because the Personal Profit-Margin is Greater is currently on a crusade to legalize pot. I make the point that by legalizing pot all that Libertarians achieve is expanding Big Government taxation and regulation much like what has happened to both alcohol and tobacco.
In other words, if Libertarians want small government then they should keep their pot illegal so as to prevent Big Government from expanding their already expanded power to regulate and tax.
@Sue:
Your story re Toomey is an important and sobering one. If that’s the way he feels, why did he bother running against Arlen Specter, in a state by every measure less conservative than Florida? Wasn’t he splitting the Republican base? I suppose that if pragmatism trumps principle, ambition trumps both . . . This is what happens when partisan tribalism reaches the point that “how” is more important than “why.” Thanks for telling your story!
It’s a cop-out to be sure, but part of the discussion brings to mind what I’ve always felt was a good idea; the “None of the above” choice on a ballot.
John McCain’s position on amnesty for illegal aliens came within a whisker of me NOT voting in the Presidential election for the first time in my life – and I’ve been voting religiously since 1968. In the end, I swallowed hard, held my nose and voted for McCain because I simply didn’t know enough about Obama to award him my ticket to the White House and there was really no other choice!
As it turns out, McCain probably wouldn’t have spent quite as many trillion dollars as the man currently in the people’s house – BUT, with Democrats in control of the House and Senate, he would have struggled mightily to advance any serious legislation. Pretty much a stalemate, as it were – and only a slightly better scenario than we have currently.
I firmly believe that had the “None of the above” option been available, that’s where my vote would have been counted. You can call it a vote for the other side, a wasted vote; you can call it anything you want, but when we don’t approve of any candidate on the ballot, we should have the option of voting exactly that position.
I’ll just run along and leave all the heavy lifting to the analysts among us.
“If that’s the way he feels, why did he bother running against Arlen Specter, in a state by every measure less conservative than Florida?”
My meeting occurred in August 2009 and at the time the majority of establishment GOP were still stuck in the ‘perception’ trap which is under an illusion that attracting Moderate-Independent votes is the way to win an election.
It is apparent that establishment GOP did not learn any lessons from the 2008 Presidential election in which moderate-independent voters had a moderate-independent maverick candidate named John McCain yet Moderate-Independents voted for the far-left progressive under the ‘perception’ that Obama was a Moderate Centrist.
The establishment GOP will better serve their Party if they abandon the perception that Moderate-Independents are the votes necessary to win; by merely pandering to Moderate-Independent vote the GOP is missing the largest voting bloc.
The reason why in the 2010 election I choose to pour my big campaign cash into SarahPAC is her talent for learning from mistakes while improving upon success; she is not stuck in the ‘perception’ of politics which may explain why she has no need to speak out of twelve sides of her mouth e.g. saying one thing to one group of voters while saying an entirely opposite thing to another set of voters.
Holding onto perceptions rather than facing reality is Mitt Romney’s problem (which is the same problem as McCain and Obama) e.g. they’ll speak fiscal-conservatism before one group then in the next group they’ll raise their hand in support of Climate-Change Fraud. All three campaigned in this contradictory fashion which was based upon a perception rather than reality.
Gov Palin saw the reality, spoke honestly and captivated listeners wherever she spoke; it is no wonder the establishment GOP is confused and remains impotent by Gov Palin’s influence on the political landscape.
As much as Churchill is revered, remember that at one time he thought socialism had promise. As I looked at his quote, there is a noticeable omission. And I’m somewhat surprised the good doctor Zero didn’t catch it. Afer doing a search of the article and comments, I found, or rather, did not find that one word omission.
Churchill is looked at as one of the wisest statesmen of the twentieth century if not all post Renaissance history. And yet, in this quote, the man who had an American mother never thought of replacing “democracy” with the word “republic”. Democracy is the majority forcing its will on a hapless minority. A gang rape and a lynching are excellent examples of a democracy giving vent to its evil desires backed by the force of the crowd. This danger is exactly why the Founders did not establish a “democracy”. My teeth are constantly put on edge whenever I hear the elites, politicians and most egregiously the REPUBLICans describing our form of government a “democracy”.
Now, we are, unfortunately, functionally a democracy. And that. my dear tormented real Americans, is exactly why we are where we are today.
“None of the Above” is always your best choice!
Find “NOTA” gear at cafepress.com.