It will come as no surprise to some that Doug Parris and I are not pals. Doug serves up a reminder of this divide in comments at two of my recent posts at Sound Politics regarding a Republican opponent to Doug Roulstone (see comment #6) and an issue with John Koster opposing public support for the Seattle Men's Chorus (see comment #16).
Doug very forcefully states his belief I am not a conservative, a rather amusing prospect based on the totality of my posts at Sound Politics - not to mention to my former colleagues on Slade Gorton's staff - but that it his position nonetheless. Indeed, when I first announced my arrival as a contributor at Sound Politics Doug was not amused, and came out firing at comment #36, which I responded to at comment #37 for the benefit of other readers.
In his most recent comments, Doug has specifically challenged me on two issues in ways that make broad assumptions about my positions on given issues and topics, without actually considering whether those assumptions are even remotely correct. Allow me to discuss:
Doug believes I am attempting to "besmirch and stereotype social conservatives" by questioning the prudence of Teri Moats' candidacy against Doug Roulstone. In reality, I agree with self-described social conservatives on many issues (though certainly not in totality), and more importantly, I suspect the social conservative community is not in total agreement with Mrs. Moats. Indeed, Doug himself, as well as Reagan Winger Michelle McIntyre, seem perfectly content with Roulstone's candidacy at that same comment thread. [Note: I have also expressed support for Roulstone here.]
My point in criticizing Mrs. Moats' candidacy is based on its timing, which was the crux of the media coverage cited in my original post. If such concerns with Roulstone (or any such Congressional run) exist as Mrs. Moats seems to express, the logical time to raise them and actually have them addressed in substance would be earlier in the primary season, during party legislative district meetings, county conventions, etc., even Reagan Wing meetings as Doug cites.
The best time to address such issues is not at the last hour of filing week, which in our state comes amazingly late in the electoral process. Now, Mrs. Moats can only hope to serve as either a protest candidate or a drain on the eventual primary winner. I continue to see no constructive outcome to that, which has nothing to do with social conservatives, and everything to do with ideological purists who tend to welcome such electoral challenges which are long on ideology, but short on success (a broader issue which Doug and I have gone round in circles about and which I'm not going to even attempt to cover here). Such purists certainly do not include all social conservatives, nor are such purists on the conservative side themselves exclusively social conservatives - not to mention such purists are currently alive and well on the other side of the aisle (see Daily Kos, Ned Lamont, etc.).
I have no problem with supporting principled conservatives with whom I don't find myself in agreement 100% the time - John Koster, Luke Esser, and Kirk Pearson come to mind off hand on that score. I also make no bones about criticizing Republicans who are acting too liberal such as Arlen Specter, Chuck Hagel, Alex Deccio, and Shirley Hankins. The issue isn't who is more conservative, the issue is how best to elect the Republican candidates I tend to strongly prefer over Democrats, and I don't see how Mrs. Moats is accomplishing that at all.
On the issue of John Koster's opposition to using hotel tax money to promote the Seattle Men's Chorus, among other cultural events in Snohomish County, Doug might be surprised to learn I actually concur with his broader notion that such spending is wasteful. If, however, Doug actually read the articles and/or comments at that post, he would have discovered such dispersal of funds - using hotel tax money to promote tourist-related events that benefit the community in question - is mandatory with the tax's collection. Thus, despite the validity of the "this is pork" argument, the question before the Snohomish County Council was not whether the money should be spent, but how.
With that in mind, I disagreed with opposing such support for the event, which has occurred in five of the last six years (including when Republicans were in the majority in three of those five years), with the same public support for promotion, without complaint to my knowledge. People choose to attend the Seattle Men's Chorus, and I'll go way out on a limb and speculate there are not many people who attend the group's events who are overtly hostile to homosexuality.
For good or for ill, my head does not automatically spin around in circles when the topic of homosexuality comes up. Just because I don't object to promoting an artistic event which might offend someone doesn't mean I'm endorsing homosexuality or a number of more serious policy issues in the news recently related to sexual orientation. If one made a point of objecting to every government expenditure to which a notable number of persons might take offense in society then no level of government is ever going to get much done, period.
Doug might be surprised to learn, in part because he never asked, that I oppose gay marriage, I vehemently object to the sort of changes in public school curriculum occurring in California to expand teaching/understanding of homosexuality, and I opposed adding sexual orientation to the non-discrimination language in the Snohomish County Charter, as our County Charter Review Commission considered, but did not act upon. Doug might also be surprised to learn that if Koster's objection would have succeeded, I would be fine with that as well; as my original post noted, I'm rather ambivalent about the whole issue but thought it worth posting at Sound Politics.
Speaking of which, I certainly don't intend to respond regularly to Doug's objections, and certainly not at such length. Yet, it seems worth laying on the table that Doug doesn't like my politics because he often leaps to erroneous conclusions based on his unique perceptions of a partial picture of the facts at hand. Since that is a broader trend in his political analysis that long pre-dates my arrival as a contributor at Sound Politics, and which speaks for itself at his website, that trend remains worth noting.
REWARD FOR READERS: And speaking of guys named Doug, if you have suffered through the entirely of the post above and need a laugh, behold this clip. It is not short (11 minutes), and not for everyone, but those who will find it funny will know for sure in the first minute or so. I maintain it grows increasingly amusing the more times you watch it.
I think this statement is your half of the fundamental difference between conservatives like me and the Republican bloggers of Sound Politics. It is more important to me that a politician I vote for is normally conservative - I think the party has swung way too far to the left by increasing spending faster than any adminstration since LBJ, even when the Iraq spending is not counted. When this happens, I happy to boot the Republicans out as they have lost their way. I think many politicians join the Republicans now because they are in power and their vote can be more effective, while having zero conservative genes. Dave Reichert is a good example, if he was a democrat would he have voted any different?
Posted by: John McDonald on August 8, 2006 07:46 AMAlso, regarding Reichert, he wouldn't be a Democrat nowadays because he's strong on national security. At best, he'd be a Joe Lieberman sort of Democrat and he'd be ousted by his own party right now, and I haven't seen Reichert act nearly as liberal.
Between a choice of a very far to the left candidate and a moderate candidate, I choose the moderate even though I sure would like that moderate to get a little more to the right.
Posted by: ferrous on August 8, 2006 09:35 AMYes, I am not giving the GOP any more of my money until they get serious about cutting spending. However, having said that I think we need to realize that serious spending cuts would be exploited with great glee by the Dems. They'll immediately go to the playbook,(with assistance from by their media buddies), and win votes telling people that the mean-spirited GOP is starving grandma and ruining kids by reducing school funding, and that cuts only benefit the evil greedy corporate rich, etc. I think the GOP leaders understand this and aren't about to fall on their own sword.
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on August 8, 2006 09:43 AMThe big problem I have with the current lot of Republicans is that they are too worried about what the Democrats and MSM accomplices will do if they just act like Republicans. Sadly, the option of having Dems in power is far worse. Until then, I just keep hoping that Republicans will stop caring about what Ted Kennedy will say and remain thankful because it could be far worse. We could have had Gore as President all this time and Kerry and ultra lib crew as the heads of Congress.
Posted by: ferrous on August 8, 2006 10:13 AMWell duh! Dems always call a decrease in the rate of baked in spending increases a "cut".
You get the point though as sad as it is. Too much cutting by the GOP and the Dems get back the House, Senate and "cringe" the Presidency.
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on August 8, 2006 10:35 AMI have to laugh at liberal~john's chiming in on this - he couldn't be more timely, or more FOS. But he illustrates, as you do, the problem with political idologies: If you have to keep protesting that "Yes, DAMMIT, I am a Conservative!" then maybe you are, and maybe you just think you are...
I don't presuppose the need to declare my bona fides - I couldn't care less what others feeeeeeeel about my ideology. I speak my mind and take my lumps when I'm wrong (Hey - it could happen!).
I leave it to fools like dinesh and liberal~john to wet their pants trying to impress everyone with their so-called credentials. Who cares?
It's what you have to say that is important. Are you ashamed of what you write? If you feel funny about your opinion I would suggest a different hobby!
Posted by: alphabet soup on August 8, 2006 03:06 PMI did not criticize Eric based on any assumptions, but for what he, himself, actually said. And he has just, in essence, repeated it: "Just because I don't object to promoting an artistic event which might offend someone doesn't mean I'm endorsing homosexuality..." No, Eric, it's worse. It means you are Okay with using OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY, without their consent, to promote homosexuality.
It's wrong from every angle... except the liberal one.
Posted by: Doug Parris on August 8, 2006 04:33 PMThe thing that torques me the most is that Republicans do not need to even consider what the Democrats or MSM have to say to win elections. The majority of voters in this country are conservative and this majority is growing. All the Republicans have to do is be conservative and they will win - plain and simple. The reason that Republicans are in such big trouble now is because they have governed like liberal Democrats and have been inept in critical situations and the majority of the country is either dispirited or pissed off. In fact, the only thing going for the Republicans is the left wing take over of the Democratic party. For the Democrats to win big in November is too have a pulse and avoid really dumb anti-american statements (which is a lot harder than it should be for Democrats)
Posted by: John McDonald on August 8, 2006 10:04 PMBoy, have you got that right! Did you hear the news that Joe Schwartz ("moderate" Republican incumbent congressman in Michigan) got trounced by the conservative challenger Tim Walberg yesterday??? And this in a "blue state"!
Posted by: Michelle on August 9, 2006 06:38 AMYou may counter that there is only so much money to go around, the party can't afford to spread the funds to every candidate, yada yada yada. That's a scarecrow argument that really means, "No way in hell are we going to put a pork-busting, border-protecting conservative in office when we can get more perks from a certified yes-man the GOP leadership did not railroad conservatives, I would wager that the GOP would hold more seats than it does now. If the GOP allowed a grassroots conservative candidate in a swing state to run, I bet the conservatives in that state would work their asses off to get that candidate elected.
Instead, the GOP puts up people who may as well be Democrats.
Am I accusing you personally of being a jackass in an elephant suit? NO. But I think that the people who promote "electable" Republicans are more interested in having an (R) majority for its own sake rather than upholding the traditional values of the Republican party. Hell, this GOP would fall over itself to get Lieberman in office, even if he never changed his values, as long as he put an (R) behind his name. He is about as conservative as the Pope is Jewish. But if he went Republican, your boys in the main office would be wetting themselves over getting him elected.
And let's look at what happens when you forsake core values for the sake of "electability.:"
Unprecedented pork spending initiated and defended by *gasp!* "electable" Republicans;
A vigorous drive to provide amnesty to millions of illegal aliens, spitting in the faces of the many immigrants who are trying to go about gaining their citizenship legally, promoted by "electable" Republicans.
Also on that issue, a drive to change the existing laws instead of demanding their enforcement, promoted by "electable" Republicans.
Inept statesmanship and the biggest diplomatic disaster in decades (the sellout of Israel to the UN by Rice and Bush- an "electable" Republican);
A majority that is incapable of standing up to a lunatic liberal minority when the moral obligation to do so clearly exists;
Taking the "political capital" gained thanks to record-breaking grassroots conservative support in 2004 and within 6 months blowing every last dime in capitulation after capitulation;
The creation of massive new bureaucracies;
The half-assed prosecution of a war for our nation's survival and the coddling of captured murderers and thugs;
I could go on, but it gets a little nauseating thinking about how all these "electable" Republicans have demonstrated the "values" they really embrace.
So Eric, I won't deny that there has to be some common ground. But when the "electable" Republican wing talks about the need to compromise, they aren't talking about any compromise on their part- they really mean that grassroots conservatives have to abandon their values in order to avoid being disenfranchised by their own party. And that is not "compromise", Eric. That's extortion.
It isn't your posts that tick me off, Eric. It's the overarching "electable" Republican attitude you endorse, that grassroots conservatives are not welcome at the table unless they first lay down their "unelectable" values.
Well, we have seen just how well the "electable" Republicans have done in introducing their core values into our government. I should think that you'd want more conservatives around before the Republicans get laughed out of office.
And you can't accuse me of throwing rocks from the margin. I hold a 2004 NRCC Republican Gold Medal. A Ronald Reagan Republican gold medal.
Posted by: ERNurse on August 10, 2006 06:03 PM