RSS Feed MenuScott Brown is not… exactly my kind of candidate. My kind of candidate is and remains Bob McDonnell; attractive and articulate, but with a blizzard of clever policy proposals that fit the era that they are being proposed in. I’m also a social conservative, and I like my candidates to have culture war theses instead of Cosmo pictorials in their past!
But, candidates need to fit their state, and Massachusetts is probably not the kind of state to run a McDonnell-type campaign. With continual education wars, Romneycare and gay marriage, Massachusetts has been through enough policy upheaval already, so a simpler message had to do. Of course, the really interesting part is how Scott Brown’s campaign hearkened back to early Kennedyism; explicitly in the famous Kennedy tax-cut ad, but also in Brown’s foreign policy hawkishness and social issue triangulation. That’s why I can’t see this as being a libertarian tantrum; libertarians aren’t known for their love of Keynesian justifications for tax cuts, and never mind foreign policy and social issues. If it’s a tantrum, it’s a conservative Democrat tantrum.
And that’s what’s so weird and unsettling about the whole thing, and that’s why I think that the Scott Brown model may not be the solution for every race coming up this year. For the long-shot races like Connecticut, sure. But, the key to pickups in the House and the Senate — lasting pickups – will be largely via “infill” in states that are more Republican than Connecticut, and the things that Scott Brown did would have to be revised accordingly.
But for now… enjoy the moment. But I’m hoping there are some serious conversations going on in Mike Pence’s Indiana office.
joemarier // Jan 20, 2010 at 6:03 pm
I wrote this last night, and I turned out to be correct about Mike Pence. So, that’s nice.
franco 2 // Jan 21, 2010 at 9:30 am
I believe we are undergoing a sea-change in American politics right now, and this is why the old labels are obsolete. Labeling discreet political groups is useful in a static period, but not today.
I believe the Frum Forum writers (not all) have fundamentally misunderstood the “Tea Party” movement. In short, they have bought into the MSM’s version of what the movement is comprised. This is somewhat understandable since Frum appears exclusively on left-leaning networks like NBC and PBS. I’m sure he is more Washington Post kind of guy than Washington Times or Washington examiner. He’s pretty immersed in the beltway echo-chamber.
He has internalized the left-wing feelings that the movement is a threat, and since he is a trained political pundit from way back can’t process the curious nature of this new trend. It is new because the landscape is new. We are involved in two controversial engagements and are under attack from ruthless suicidal organizations. Our economy is on the brink of disaster. The corporations, once the backbone of America, are now global entities taking their factories and jobs to whatever country provides best for their needs and lobbying for favor with our government corrupting the political class.
The many laws enacted over the years serve to obfuscate and allow corporate giants carte blanche as long as they have cover from the political and media elites. There is no precedent for this and so the old models are obsolete.
The world is in great flux and upheaval. There are multi-dimensional threats. China holds our debt yet still depends on us. Russia is a free radical with plenty of oil and a nuke arsenal. The Middle East is still tenuous. Pakistan is a nuclear power and sworn enemy of our ally India. Europe is floundering in statism and sclerosis – a nearly worthless ally. Countries to our south are not our friends and some seek our demise and are newly empowered to affect us.
Our political process is more corrupt than it ever has been, and our media corporations can engineer public attention and opinion on whatever they wish.
The tea party people are made up of ordinary Americans who share a common understanding of America that goes beyond party affiliation – especially since both parties have become distorted entities warped by among other things, political globalism. This is why and how the use of JFK by Brown was effective and significant.
Naturally tea partiers skew conservative, since it is inherently a reaction to progressivism and state control. Libertarians, of course, find common cause here too, but increasingly Democrats are catching on thanks to Obama’s rapid take-no-prisoners advancement of his agenda.
The present and former Republican element at tea parties are by no means exclusively social conservatives, and I challenge anyone to find any significant culture war signs or speeches at tea party rallies.
Conservatives are upset at the GOP because they have been too willing to go along, too willing to take the easy path and once elected find ways to survive in Washington without becoming targets for the ruthless leftists and their media allies. These GOP politicians also tend to be liberal on social issues but this in itself is only an aggravating factor; the real problem with these politicians is that they also tend to be disloyal in other ways. perhaps they feel like maverick already and by that nature feel free to go against their party in other areas. Generally though I believe these pols like to take the easy path with EVERYTHING which is why they are socially liberal. The easy path was to endorse Obama (Powell, Hegel) The easy path is to agree with the premises of the MSM on every issue. The easy path for Mccain was to avoid drawing stark contrasts between his views and Obama’s. But here, one year later Brown is unafraid to draw such contrasts and he is being cheered (and elected) for his bold lines.
Scott Brown resonated with Republicans Independents and Democrats (23%) because ordinary Americans are seeing the trend toward state control. The tipping point has been reached and the threats to ALL of us go beyond party or some aspects of party. Conservatives, previously “law and order” types, are fast becoming appalled at police and court conduct. (Coakleys history as a prosecutor was also a factor with everyone too) Red light cameras,DUI checkpoints, and the increasing nannyism of the government all to raise revenue instead of provide safety. You don’t have to be a libertarian anymore to recoil at some of these excesses. It seems Democrats (not all) seem more comfortable with this nanny state tendencies as they are prone to seek collective solutions. But there are Republicans too, out of touch and relatively unaffected by the day-to-day life ordinary folks go through, still operating like it is culturally 1985. Frum and Brooks and Specter and many others are apparently unable to let go of their outdated world-views and in Frum’s case, is actually blinded by party politics and unable to think outside the box.
Frum cannot see how the Republican Party plays into nanny statism, corporatism (as opposed to free-market capitalism) and a dangerous belief that we can continue to grow government without becoming slaves to it. It is those Republicans the tea party people seek to purge. Scott Brown isn’t an Arlen Specter or a Chuck Hegal (at least, not yet) . I trust him more because he isn’t a party hack, he wasn’t forced on the voters like Dede, he wasn’t kept alive by the GOP like Specter and others.