If you missed Peggy Noonan’s column in The Wall Street Journal today, it’s worth a read. The end of the editorial is pasted below.
While reading the column, Republicans should keep something in mind. In many areas, the Party Powers-That-Be choose the candidates instead of permitting an open primary. (We saw how that worked in NY 23 in November.) As these local Republican Party heads consider the coming election, they should ignore their inclination to move those already in the system up the ladder, or of going back to candidates who have already been to Congress. They should refuse to make the “safe” choice, of choosing the candidate they think can win.
This election is about more than just winning. It’s about changing the direction of a bloated, incompetent government that’s perilously close to collapsing the country. It’s about reducing the size of government. It’s about reducing entitlements to make them sustainable. It’s about reducing the budget deficit.
To do that, we don’t need candidates from inside government or candidates who have been in Congress before.
We need people who aren’t looking at government as a career choice. Hard work must be done, and we must have fresh candidates who have the spine to do that hard work.
We can’t speak for all conservatives, but for our money, this may be the Republican Party’s last chance. If they muck things up, as they did in 1994, they’re unlikely to get our support again for a very long time.
It’s time to end Republican “business as usual.” Unfortunately, at the moment the Party Powers-That -Be seem to be looking at this election as any other, choosing candidates they think “can win,” rather than candidates who are willing to do the hard work that must be done.
As Peggy says, “Earn this. Be worthy of it. Be serious.”
Here’s Peggy’s column (remember this is the end of the column, but the entire column is worth reading:)
Which gets us to the Republicans. The question isn’t whether they’ll win seats in the House and Senate this year, and the question isn’t even how many. The question is whether the party will be worthy of victory, whether it learned from its losses in 2006 and ’08, whether it deserves leadership. Whether Republicans are a worthy alternative. Whether, in short, they are serious.
I spoke a few weeks ago with a respected Republican congressman who told me with some excitement of a bill he’s put forward to address the growth of entitlements and long-term government spending. We only have three or four years to get it right, he said. He made a strong case. I asked if his party was doing anything to get behind the bill, and he got the blanched look people get when they’re trying to keep their faces from betraying anything. Not really, he said. Then he shrugged. “They’re waiting for the Democrats to destroy themselves.”
This isn’t news, really, but it was startling to hear a successful Republican political practitioner say it.
Republican political professionals in Washington assume a coming victory. They do not see that 2010 could be a catastrophic victory for them. If they seize back power without clear purpose, if they are not serious, if they do the lazy and cynical thing by just sitting back and letting the Democrats lose, three bad things will happen. They will contribute to the air of cynicism in which our citizens marinate. Their lack of seriousness will be discerned by the Republican base, whose enthusiasm and generosity will be blunted. And the Republicans themselves will be left unable to lead when their time comes, because operating cynically will allow the public to view them cynically, which will lessen the chance they will be able to do anything constructive.
In this sense, the cynical view—we can sit back and wait—is naive. The idealistic view—we must stand for things and move on them now—is shrewder.
Political professionals are pugilistic, and often see politics in terms of fight movies: “Rocky,” “Raging Bull.” They should be thinking now of a different one, of Tom Hanks at the end of “Saving Private Ryan.” “Earn this,” he said to the man whose life he’d helped save.
Earn this. Be worthy of it. Be serious.
Read the entire column here: The Risk of Catastrophic Victory.
And then there was this in today’s Washington Times. A New Conservative Party?
And there’s this by Kim Strassel from Friday’s Wall Street Journal. Young Guns II.
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Tags: 2010 Election, 2010 PA Election, Pennsylvania Politics, Republicans
January 9, 2010 at 7:11 pm |
An “open” primary is a bad idea when all the candidates have no fund raising ability or name recognition. The risk that a candidate who does not have the acmumen or organization will win a 9 way primary is huge. I think a primary with an endorsement, where there are 3 or 4 candidates who can engage in open and honest debate would be the best option. If a candidate can’t raise money or organize a team, they shouldn’t count on a large, weak field to get them through.
To be clear, a primary would help a candidate hone a message, develop a grass roots organization and register and engage voters. An open primary runs the risk of a moderate candidate pooling a coalition around one candidate with a conservative vote being split multiple ways.
We need a primary; not an open one.
January 9, 2010 at 7:24 pm |
Good point. Having any sort of competitive primary would be an improvement. What we have now is an appointment–or an annointment. That’s just the party powers-that-be appointing the same old folks with the same old ideas of how things “work” in Washington. We need something different. If the Republicans aren’t going to be the agents of change, then voters will have to look elsewhere.