Yesterday State Senator Nolan Mettetal switched parties from the Democratic to the Republican Party. He stated he was a conservative and the Democratic Party no longer welcomed conservatives. He said, "I'm the same person with the same values that I've always had, but I've found a new home."
Okay, fine. Since I'm nominally a Republican (Actually, I'm an Old Right conservative.), I like to see people switch from the Democratic to the GOP. Notice how he switched less than a month into the Legislative session and just three months after the election. How convenient. He used the Democratic Party to win the primary and to be elected as a Democrat. He was first elected as a Democrat back in 1995. He aligned himself with the Democrats in the State Senate, always identifying with that party. Now he's a Republican.
Here's my question: Why didn't he run as a Republican last year? That way, he could have stated how the Democratic Party betrayed conservatism and he was now running as a Republican. The voters could evaluate his decision to switch. Two State Senators last year did switch parties (from Democratic to Republican) and were thrown out by the voters.
Chances are very good Mettetal would have been thrown out by a strong Democrat. The area he represents is strong Democratic territory. But now he has four years to repair his political fences and get reelected (should he decide to run for reelection). The Democratic Party activists who worked for him feel betrayed. Can you blame them?
I like what Phil Gramm, the former U.S. Senator from Texas, did. He was reelected as a Democrat as a Congressman from Texas in 1982. He became disgusted with the Democratic Party and resigned his seat, saying he would swith parties and run as a Republican in a special election. He easily won and later ran for--and was elected--to the U.S. Senate.
However, Mississippi has no party affiliation in special elections. This is why I'm in favor of party registration. There should also be a provision in the party registration bill if an officeholder switches parties, his seat automatically becomes vacant and he must run in a special election for that seat under his new party label.
What Senator Mettatal should do is resign his seat and run in a special election under his new party label (even though it wouldn't be on the ballot). Let the voters decide if they agree on his party switch.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
The Great Polarizer
There is no person who can polarize the country running for President as Hillary Clinton. Even though I'm a fire-breathing conservative who thinks President Bush is a liberal weenie, I could stomach Barak Obama. At least I'd give him a chance. And even though I would more than likely disagree with his policies if he were elected, I wouldn't dislike him. When Bill Clinton was President, I didn't like his policies. But I liked him as a person. In fact, he'd probably make a good fishing or hunting buddy.
Not Hillary Clinton. I do not dislike Hillary Clinton. I UTTERLY DESPISE HER. I don't call her "Hitlery" because I dislike her. I call her that because she is--and has in the past--determined to destroy those who disagree with her. We talked about the Presidential race in our Sunday School class yesterday. None of the Democrats or Republicans elicited much emotion. But all you had to do was mention Hillary and people started going ballistic. You have no idea how deeply hated she is.
If she is elected, she will have 40% of the people hating her guts (I'll be one of them.) the second she takes the oath of office as President. If she makes mistakes--which she will--that could easily rise to 60% or more. She is hated not because she is a woman. She could be my twin sister and I would passionately hate her. She is extremely ruthless who will have no limits in destroying her political opponents. She will come up with despicable lies to discredit her opponents. This is a person who has no iota of decency or honor. She is a crook and a pathological liar. I honestly believe she would steal milk from a dying baby if it would score her some political points.
She may very well be elected. But count on a polarized, deeply split country for four years if she is elected. If you think this country was polarized during Bill Clinton's and George W. Bush's administrations, you haven't seen polarization until she is elected.
Not Hillary Clinton. I do not dislike Hillary Clinton. I UTTERLY DESPISE HER. I don't call her "Hitlery" because I dislike her. I call her that because she is--and has in the past--determined to destroy those who disagree with her. We talked about the Presidential race in our Sunday School class yesterday. None of the Democrats or Republicans elicited much emotion. But all you had to do was mention Hillary and people started going ballistic. You have no idea how deeply hated she is.
If she is elected, she will have 40% of the people hating her guts (I'll be one of them.) the second she takes the oath of office as President. If she makes mistakes--which she will--that could easily rise to 60% or more. She is hated not because she is a woman. She could be my twin sister and I would passionately hate her. She is extremely ruthless who will have no limits in destroying her political opponents. She will come up with despicable lies to discredit her opponents. This is a person who has no iota of decency or honor. She is a crook and a pathological liar. I honestly believe she would steal milk from a dying baby if it would score her some political points.
She may very well be elected. But count on a polarized, deeply split country for four years if she is elected. If you think this country was polarized during Bill Clinton's and George W. Bush's administrations, you haven't seen polarization until she is elected.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
The GOP Malaise
I have heard a lot from my friends on how they feel about the candidates running for the Republican Presidential nomination. I have never heard such a dislike for the field. In all my years of politics I have never seen such a lack of enthusiasm for the GOP candidates (the exception is the Ron Paul supporters) as I have seen this year. The biggest complaint I've heard is "none of them are like Reagan."
Reagan never got elected to office and then developed a political philosophy. I followed Reagan's political career from his famous speech "A Time for Choosing (delivered October 27, 1964)" until he retired from politics in 1994. If you look over his political career before he was elected to office as governor of California in 1966, he already had a well-developed political philosophy. He was not a cipher when it came to political philosophy. He actually read philosophers who developed the conservative philosophy he believed in--Locke, Hayek, von Mises, Kirk, etc. This is not just sheer talk. Reporters who visited him looked in his library. He actually had those books by those philosophers and underlined key passages. Believe it or not, Reagan was a conservative intellectual. When he decided to run for office, his political philosophy was already developed and backed by an intellectual knowledge of reading.
This is in very strong contrast to the candidates running for the GOP nomination. With the exception of Rep. Ron Paul, none of them have any defined conservative philosophy. If you were to ask them why they were conservatives, they could not give you an intelligent answer. (Paul could. Indeed, he is very well-read on conservative philosophy. His political philosophy was already developed when he was first elected to Congress in a special election back in 1976. Alas, he stands no chance of getting the nomination.). Of all the major candidates, Fred Thompson came the closest. But he has dropped out.
I have read the transcripts of the GOP debates and I can tell you the four major candidates--Mitt Romney, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee--know nothing about conservatism and its intellectual underpinnings. They just flow with the times. They just differentiate themselves a little from the Democrats. Their big arguments are they are not Hitlery or Obama. Now that's a sure-fire political philosophy.
When all four of those candidates initially ran for office, none of them had a defined political philosophy. Giuliani was a GEORGE MCGOVERN supporter in 1972. Mitt Romney ran to the LEFT against Ted Kennedy(!) in his race for the U.S. Senate in 1994! Huckabee was a big taxer as governor of Arkansas. And McCain is certainly no conservative. Just look at that McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform Act.
Now all these four claim to be conservative. They are no more conservative than my cat Bueller is a space alien. I just may vote third party this year. If this is the best the GOP can do, they richly deserve to lose. In all my years of being involved in the GOP Presidential primaries, I have never been so disenchanted as I have this year.
Let Hitlery govern for four years and mess up this county beyond recognition. The GOP will regain control of Congress and maybe the GOP will put up a REAL conservative in 2012.
Reagan never got elected to office and then developed a political philosophy. I followed Reagan's political career from his famous speech "A Time for Choosing (delivered October 27, 1964)" until he retired from politics in 1994. If you look over his political career before he was elected to office as governor of California in 1966, he already had a well-developed political philosophy. He was not a cipher when it came to political philosophy. He actually read philosophers who developed the conservative philosophy he believed in--Locke, Hayek, von Mises, Kirk, etc. This is not just sheer talk. Reporters who visited him looked in his library. He actually had those books by those philosophers and underlined key passages. Believe it or not, Reagan was a conservative intellectual. When he decided to run for office, his political philosophy was already developed and backed by an intellectual knowledge of reading.
This is in very strong contrast to the candidates running for the GOP nomination. With the exception of Rep. Ron Paul, none of them have any defined conservative philosophy. If you were to ask them why they were conservatives, they could not give you an intelligent answer. (Paul could. Indeed, he is very well-read on conservative philosophy. His political philosophy was already developed when he was first elected to Congress in a special election back in 1976. Alas, he stands no chance of getting the nomination.). Of all the major candidates, Fred Thompson came the closest. But he has dropped out.
I have read the transcripts of the GOP debates and I can tell you the four major candidates--Mitt Romney, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee--know nothing about conservatism and its intellectual underpinnings. They just flow with the times. They just differentiate themselves a little from the Democrats. Their big arguments are they are not Hitlery or Obama. Now that's a sure-fire political philosophy.
When all four of those candidates initially ran for office, none of them had a defined political philosophy. Giuliani was a GEORGE MCGOVERN supporter in 1972. Mitt Romney ran to the LEFT against Ted Kennedy(!) in his race for the U.S. Senate in 1994! Huckabee was a big taxer as governor of Arkansas. And McCain is certainly no conservative. Just look at that McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform Act.
Now all these four claim to be conservative. They are no more conservative than my cat Bueller is a space alien. I just may vote third party this year. If this is the best the GOP can do, they richly deserve to lose. In all my years of being involved in the GOP Presidential primaries, I have never been so disenchanted as I have this year.
Let Hitlery govern for four years and mess up this county beyond recognition. The GOP will regain control of Congress and maybe the GOP will put up a REAL conservative in 2012.
Billy McCoy versus the GOP
State Rep. Billy McCoy was reelected House Speaker by the narrowest of margins, 62-60. In doing so, he did not get ONE Republican to vote for him. All 47 Republicans voted for Rep. Jeff Smith for Speaker. Smith also picked up thirteen Democratic State Representatives, two of them coming from the Legislative Black Caucus. The Democrats voted 62-13 for McCoy and the GOP voted 47-0 for Smith.
In retaliation, McCoy appointed all Democrats to House committee chairmanships. The only GOPers who got anything were freshmen appointed to vice chairmanships. But what did the GOP expect? They can scream and holler all they want, but they got what they deserved. Billy McCoy doesn't have to give them squat. To the victors belong the spoils. And you get your just desserts for raw partisanship.
Don't get me wrong. I'm FOR brass knuckles, blood gushing, groin kicking raw partisanship. I want both sides to present their arguments and to fight vigorously for them. I want screaming and nastiness on the legislative floors. Let the legislators passionately fight for their beliefs and ideals. I utterly despise State Rep. Steve Holland (D-Plantersville). He's a total jerk and other raw adjectives which I will not print. I think he barely passes for human. But I admire his raw partisanship. I admire his willingness to fight for what he believes in.
The GOP should learn a lesson here. Winning statewide races is great. But that means little if you can't win the legislative races. In a supposed Republican year, the GOP did not gain one seat in the House (It remained the same.) and lost three in the State Senate. If the GOP had used its resources for the legislative races they may have turned around a few seats in the House. But they were obsessed with winning those state races.
The GOP is going to learn the hard way that it's the small races that matter. The GOP should have a "Republican Legislature Victory Fund" or something like that. I would concentrate on winning more seats after redistricting in the 2011 elections. I would pour in tens of thousands of dollars in winning the marginal districts. Indeed, I would start recruiting candidates after the 2008 general election.
The GOP deserves no sympathy from anybody. They played raw partisanship in the House and lost. Live with it. And do something to win more legislative seats in 2011.
In retaliation, McCoy appointed all Democrats to House committee chairmanships. The only GOPers who got anything were freshmen appointed to vice chairmanships. But what did the GOP expect? They can scream and holler all they want, but they got what they deserved. Billy McCoy doesn't have to give them squat. To the victors belong the spoils. And you get your just desserts for raw partisanship.
Don't get me wrong. I'm FOR brass knuckles, blood gushing, groin kicking raw partisanship. I want both sides to present their arguments and to fight vigorously for them. I want screaming and nastiness on the legislative floors. Let the legislators passionately fight for their beliefs and ideals. I utterly despise State Rep. Steve Holland (D-Plantersville). He's a total jerk and other raw adjectives which I will not print. I think he barely passes for human. But I admire his raw partisanship. I admire his willingness to fight for what he believes in.
The GOP should learn a lesson here. Winning statewide races is great. But that means little if you can't win the legislative races. In a supposed Republican year, the GOP did not gain one seat in the House (It remained the same.) and lost three in the State Senate. If the GOP had used its resources for the legislative races they may have turned around a few seats in the House. But they were obsessed with winning those state races.
The GOP is going to learn the hard way that it's the small races that matter. The GOP should have a "Republican Legislature Victory Fund" or something like that. I would concentrate on winning more seats after redistricting in the 2011 elections. I would pour in tens of thousands of dollars in winning the marginal districts. Indeed, I would start recruiting candidates after the 2008 general election.
The GOP deserves no sympathy from anybody. They played raw partisanship in the House and lost. Live with it. And do something to win more legislative seats in 2011.
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