What Beltway Republicans Have in Common with Democrats

Kenneth Spitz, in an article yesterday for American Thinker, discusses the complete lack of leadership in the ranks of the Washington establishment Republicans. Spitz, a precinct committeeman and local party chairman, makes the point, correctly, that the DC Republican establishment is dominated by non-conservatives. RNC Chairman Michael Steele must not only fight the liberal media, but the inertia put up by the entrenched party apparatchiks who really don't believe in or understand conservatism.

Due to this lack of principled conservative leadership in Washington, rank and file conservatives are left without a voice. Yesterday's decision by Olympia Snowe (RINO, Me.) to support the government takeover of health care is a perfect example. Due to this leadership "vacuum", as Spitz puts it, conservatives have been forced to look outside Washington for those few who are actually opposing the radical encroachment of government into their lives. People such as Rush Limbaugh and others who, unlike beltway Republicans, are not afraid to confront Obama and his disastrous policies. Spitz then goes on to point out the obvious with respect to the Republican establishment:

This is where the Republican Party is failing. They are not connecting with the town hall dissenters and Tea Party protestors. Some Republican elected officials even act embarrassed by these citizens turned activists. The liberal media immediately highlights these embarrassed Republicans to marginalize the protestors. Rather than pushing them away, the Republican Party should be recruiting these folks. These citizen-activists need a channel for their energy and passion and their natural home is the Republican Party. Protests are for publicity, elections determine government policy.

Therein lies the problem. Washington Republicans are uncomfortable with, even embarrassed by, those who vote for them. In that respect, they are no different than Democrat politicians. For years Democrat voters have had nothing in common with the elitist Democrat politicians for whom they vote, without thinking, in election after election. Never mind that elected Democrats are equally embarrassed by their rank and file voters. Democrat politicians are easily able to convince these voters that they care about them due to the near universal monopoly liberals have on the old media and entertainment industry.

Big cities provide a perfect example. Most, if not all, have been run by liberals for decades. No serious resident of these cities can thoughtfully make the case that their lives have been improved in any way by these Democrat policies. Businesses are fleeing cities due to ever increasing taxes. Big city public schools are run entirely by and for another Democrat Party constituent: teacher's unions. The result is a catastrophic educational system in which students graduate with little or no hope of ever becoming a contributing member of society, further forcing businesses to flee in search of qualified employees. Cleveland isn't called "The Mistake on the Lake" by accident. Despite the fact that cities like Cleveland are disaster areas, voters, like zombies, continue to return the same people to office year after year with no thought of ever trying something different.



The problem for establishment Republicans, of course, is that their voters are not zombies. Conservatives know when they are being patronized by those for whom they vote. Ask Tom Delay or George W. Bush. The 1994 Republican congressional victory was the result of the promise of conservative ideas such as the flat tax, term limits, and smaller government. However, it didn't take long for the new Republican Majority, once elected, to forget these ideas and begin spending money as fast as the Democrat Party. What ever happened to term limits, the flat tax, and smaller government? I remember some lip service being paid to these conservative ideas in the mid-'90s, but that lasted about as long as a Great Lakes summer.

George Bush practically doubled spending from $1.8 trillion to $3.5 trillion during his tenure. Conservative voters notice when those politicians they vote for say one thing during an election campaign and do something quite different once elected, even if liberal voters don't. This is the problem for beltway Republicans: conservatives actually expect politicians to follow through with what they promised while running for office and, unlike Democrat voters, conservatives are smart enough to know when they don't.

This is what elitist Republicans don't understand and why they have been completely unable to capture the grass roots energy embodied in the TEA Party movement. Indeed, if elitist Washington Republicans are not careful, they could just as easily become the target of this movement as have the Democrats. David Sessions, at Politics Daily, explains that to some extent this is already happening:

The grassroots anti-tax, anti-government movement sweeping through Republicans nationwide is proving a thorn in the side of the national party as the loose coalition known as "tea partiers" or "tea party protesters" draft guerrilla candidates to take on GOP-approved incumbents.

[...]

In Florida, tea party activist are defying GOP wishes by supporting House Speaker Marco Rubio over centrist incumbent Gov. Charlie Crist. Conservative groups have been crusading against Crist ever since he supported President Obama's bailout and stimulus packages, which they see as dramatic advances in government spending. Tea partiers are also opposing GOP-backed Senate candidates in California, Colorado and Connecticut.

It's clear that the GOP establishment has no clue what the TEA Party movement is all about. It is truly a grass roots movement and they will not be co-opted by an out of touch Democrat-light Republican Party which, unfortunately, is what the GOP leadership in Washington symbolizes. Mark Noonan, at Blogsforvictory.com, explains what the TEA party movement is looking for and how Republicans may be able to capture their energy and support:

The TEA Party wants just this - government under control, out of the way and reduced to its proper functions. If we can demonstrate to the TEA Party people that we are serious about this, they’ll come out and vote for us in droves, and provide all the enthusiasm we need to sweep this nation. So far, I only see a few Republicans who are picking up on this - Sarah Palin is the most prominent, but most GOPers either are shying away, or are foolishly thinking of ways to get the support without carrying out the promise.

Governor Palin is indeed the candidate most likely to garner the support and enthusiasm of the TEA party movement. She is the only potential candidate who connects with and listens to actual voters. She is one of us, not another beltway Republican who will tell us what we want to hear when running for office, then change their stripes upon being elected. She is a force of nature. Even Alex Knepper, of the establishment-friendly Race42012.com, had this to say after attending the 9/12 event in Washington:

Sarah Palin was without a doubt the unsaid queen of the 9/12 March. Of the many people I interviewed, about a dozen expressed solid support for a Palin candidacy, with all of the others at least open to supporting her.

Although the immense grass roots support for Governor Palin is tough for the GOP establishment to accept, it is not difficult to understand. Governor Palin is an honest and principled conservative who says what she means and means what she says. She truly believes in limited government and has a history of actually shrinking it. She doesn't merely slow the growth of government, but actually reduces spending from one year to the next. In short, she is a fiscal conservative who believes in individual responsibility and personal freedom. At this time of unprecedented growth in government and loss of individual freedom, we should settle for nothing less.

The Republican establishment in Washington has never even attempted to actually reduce government spending, they just promise to continue the Democrat's growth of government, only more efficiently. Why should anyone believe that they have finally seen the light and will actually shrink government now? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Yet by trying to marginalize Governor Palin in order to clear the path for another RINO to be nominated in 2012, it's clear that this is what the establishment GOP is attempting to accomplish.

Just like elite Democrats have contempt for their voters, as epitomized by our polarizing President's famous "bitter-clinger" comments to San Francisco elites, so do establishment Republicans have contempt for their voters. A true grass roots conservative like Governor Palin is abhorrent to their elite sensibilities in the same way Ronald Reagan was in the 1970s. Establishment Republicans would much prefer their 2012 candidate was someone with an elite pedigree, perhaps someone who writes a "weighty" tome nobody reads or whose father was a former governor or chairman of an automobile company.

However, the GOP elites underestimate the determination which exists in the grass roots conservative movement to avoid the mistakes of the past 20 years. Starting with George H.W. Bush in 1988 and ending with John McCain in 2008, Republicans have not nominated a true small government conservative in a generation. Governor Palin, if she chooses to run, will end that string in 2012. She is poised like nobody else to seize the opportunity to lead the small-government conservative movement back to their rightful place. To do so, she will have to take on the Washington establishments, even in her own party. This is not a new role for her. Matthew Continetti, in an article for The Weekly Standard, explains:

Throughout her career, Palin has seemed most "appropriate" at moments when she senses that the populace is diverging from the political class that rules over it. Palin exploits the split and wins office as the tribune of the people. That is what happened when she saw that Wasillans were tired of the nonideological, nonpartisan, unexciting mayoralty of John Stein; when she saw self-dealing among Republican insiders in Anchorage and Juneau; when she saw that Alaskans were tired of Frank Murkowski and the lobbyist culture he nursed and protected.

Governor Palin, in her Hong Kong speech, perfectly articulated what it means to be a small-government conservative who passionately believes that individual freedom, including the freedom to be imperfect, should take precedence over state control:

You can call me a common-sense conservative. My approach to the issues facing my country and the world, issues that we’ll discuss today, are rooted in this common-sense conservatism… Common sense conservatism deals with the reality of the world as it is. Complicated and beautiful, tragic and hopeful, we believe in the rights and the responsibilities and the inherent dignity of the individual.

We don’t believe that human nature is perfectible; we’re suspicious of government efforts to fix problems because often what it’s trying to fix is human nature, and that is impossible. It is what it is. But that doesn’t mean that we’re resigned to, well, any negative destiny. Not at all. I believe in striving for the ideal, but within the realistic confines of human nature…

Although these beliefs may not be consistent with those of the Republican Party establishment and their preferred candidates, they sound absolutely spot on to me. Just as the blue-blood establishment Republicans tried to tell us that Ronald Reagan was "polarizing" during the Carter years, so are establishment Republicans trying to sell us on the false meme that Governor Palin is polarizing now. Yet I see nothing divisive in her common sense beliefs and approach to governing.

What would truly be divisive is establishment Republicans trying to foist another candidate with no grass roots support on conservatives. This was successful as far as the nomination was concerned in 2008 because, well, to put it bluntly, there was no candidate running for the nomination who was qualitatively better than the one who won and conservatives were largely unengaged. Sorry Mitt. Sorry Huck.

Things will be different in 2012. A party elite so out of touch with their voters has no right to dictate anything at all. Conservatives will not sit still and allow the Washington establishment to determine our candidate this time around. We now have a candidate who truly excites the base and around whom we can enthusiastically rally and support with everything we have. That Governor Palin and conservatives will have to battle Republican blue-bloods and their candidate is obvious. But just as Ronald Reagan was successful in 1980, so will Governor Palin be in 2012, should she choose to run. The elites are well financed, but in the end that will be no match for the passion of the base. Beltway Republicans have but two choices: get on board, or get out of the way.