How To Fix The Political Parties, Especially The GOP By Herb Denenberg

Source: http://www.thebulletin.us/site/news.cfm?newsid=20193183&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=576392&rfi=6

11/09/2008

What should the political parties do to improve the political process in the years ahead? There is endless criticism of Congress and the President of the United States, but little analysis directed to our political parties that actually produce all those officials. The final product gets all the criticism, and the machinery that produces it is almost ignored.

So I thought I'd offer up a few suggestions for both parties and then for the Republican Party in particular. I'm more interested in the Republican Party, as I now view the Democratic Party as one of the enemies of a free society. See my columns, "Handling the Enemies of a Free Society" (Nov. 5) and "The Democratic Party's Assault on Free Speech" (Nov. 6), both at the Bulletin's Web site, thebulletin.us.

The first problem is that the primary election process can't produce the best candidates because of the distortions of the mainstream media. Unfortunately for our democracy, the mainstream media has become a partisan and is no longer in the role of producing journalism to give the public the facts so it can make up its mind. The mainstream media makes up its mind, and then tries to defraud and brainwash the public into accepting its choice. That was neatly illustrated in both the primaries and then the general election. Those that relied on the mainstream media were getting campaign propaganda and not the facts needed to make an informed judgment. Consequently, we had an election that can be viewed as a coup, with the mainstream media playing a central and improper role in taking over the government by electing their candidate, the chosen one, Sen. Barack Obama.

Had the mainstream media given the public the facts on Sen. Sen. Obama, he would have never survived the Democratic primaries. Further, as Rush Limbaugh observed, the mainstream media has such heavy influence that it plays a decisive role in even the selection of the Republican nominee. That's why Sen. John McCain, a media darling (while criticizing his fellow Republicans and while not running in the general against a Democrat) may have ended up as the nominee rather than what Mr. Limbaugh calls a real Republican. The mainstream media sold Sen. McCain in the primaries, but of course, rejected him in the general election.

So if we are ever to get primaries and general elections that function as they are intended to, we somehow have to get more people to seek both sides of the issues from the alternative media. To correct the mainstream media problem, first of all, we have to put pressure on it to get back to basic journalistic principles and end their outpouring of dishonest, biased and fraudulent journalism. That requires a massive flood of complaints to all media outlets on mainstream media bias and a massive boycott of media outlets that so blatantly slant the news and defraud the public.

It also requires more education of the public about the importance of the alternative media and the conservative media, which are much closer to being fair and balanced than the mainstream media. Finally, it may require more effort by each political party, and especially the Republican Party, to do a more effective and extensive job of communicating campaign issues and material on the candidates. I'm convinced the Republicans could have devastated Sen. Obama's candidacy, if early on they would have fully documented his voting record (radical, leftist, liberal, socialist, extremist) and his associates (terrorists, bigots, racists, subversives, and even Tony Rezko, crook). However, they didn't do so to my knowledge, and Sen. McCain even made the game-changing blunder of taking Rev. Jeremiah "God Damn America" Wright off the table. Maybe he wanted to play Mr. Nice Guy, maybe he wanted to avoid any hint of introducing the race issue, or maybe he was just plain stupid. The public should have been flooded with print and broadcast material on Sen. Obama's record and associates, and that would have doomed his candidacy almost at the outset.

The next thing the political parties have to do is to become more inclusive, in recruiting candidates and in helping those who are running. This matter came into sharp relief for me when I had a post-election conversation with Steve Kantrowitz, a retired two-star admiral and now a practicing lawyer, about his unsuccessful run, as a Republican, for the Pennsylvania state senate. This was his first run for office, and he came out of the experience with exactly what I encountered during my unsuccessful run for the Democratic Party nomination for the U.S. Senate in 1974.
We both found that the party system tends to be a closed one, with a welcome out to only the inner circle of a good-old-boys' club. They view any outsider as a nuisance and not only don't give an outsider much help, but also may actually hinder his candidacy. This may be caused by a concern among party bosses that the outsider will not do the "right" thing and not favor large financial contributors to the party with patronage and votes. This closed system almost always assures mediocre candidates and not those that can bring excellence to the table.
Adm. Kantrowitz is a perfect example of the kind of excellence the political parties should be looking for in candidates. Here is a man who brought a distinguished 30-year career in the U.S. Navy to the table, coupled with a man who for eight years has been running a small business. He was a founding partner of a Philadelphia-based law firm with nine lawyers and eight other employees. As he pointed out in his campaign literature, it might be refreshing to have a state senator who has actually had to meet a payroll, to provide health insurance for employees, and to balance the budget of a successful business enterprise.

As Adm. Kantrowitz indicated in his campaign, the legislature should come closer to the old concept of the citizen-legislator, someone who brings a special kind of experience and expertise to the legislature, serves a few years, and then leaves. Instead, we tend to have professionals who stay forever, milk the system, work on their own behalf, stay as long as they can, grants themselves overly rich pensions and other perks, and have little time to serve the public and pay little attention to the public interest. Instead, their main focus is reelection and more benefits and fatter pensions. A candidate like Adm. Kantrowitz wasn't trying to drink at the public trough. He would have been better off financially by continuing to practice law and not run for office. But he wanted the special kind of public service provided by election to a legislative body.

Unfortunately for the state of Pennsylvania, Adm. Kantrowitz doesn't think he'll run again. I say that, as he is just the kind of legislator Pennsylvania needs. I might add his wife is sure he won't run again.
To bring about these changes in our political parties, more citizens will have to get involved as workers, activists, committeemen, candidates and donors. And for fundamental reforms there has to be activity all year long, not just a few weeks before election time. The parties have to more aggressively recruit candidates and others year round, and end the closed-club atmosphere that now pervades our two parties.
And now to get back to what the Republican Party has to do to regain power. Jeb Bush got it right back in February of 2007 when he said the party has to get back to principles they abandoned after seizing power. Those principles are limited government and fiscal responsibility.

The limited government principle is easy to reject in time of financial crisis, exactly what we face now. But that principle doesn't say that government doesn't play a key role, and that a crisis may place special if temporary demands on government. It simply says unless crisis or other circumstances require government action, it should stay out of the way and give citizens maximum freedom to keep their money and do their thing. The Democrats usually get it backwards, going to government almost as a first resort rather than a last resort. That encroaches on freedom, tends toward confiscatory taxation, creates an entitlement mindset, destroys individual responsibility, and produces bad results in every respect. And a special note of caution: The Democrats will be quick to use any crisis as an excuse to enact their big government, high tax, heavy regulation, centralized government, weak national defense approach into law.

The principle of fiscal responsibility is also easy to reject in time of crisis. But it doesn't mean that a crisis may not require deficit spending. It merely says that to the extent possible, government should stick to a budget. It should certainly not try to launch expensive and ambitious programs when we're already running a huge deficit and when a crisis or two may require even more deficit spending. It should not, a la Sen. Obama, come in with a trillion dollars or more in new spending when we are already sinking deeply into debt and deficit. And it should not, a la Sen. Obama, call for new taxes during an economic downturn.

Another principle, perhaps a corollary of limited government, is decentralization. Whenever possible and practicable, a government task should be assigned to the lowest level possible in the three-layer government configuration: federal, state and local. Still another corollary is less regulation of the kind that burdens the consumer and business but produces more problems than it eliminates.

Had the Republicans listened to Jeb Bush in 2007, they might have avoided the electoral defeat, some say disaster, of November 2008.

Now Sean Hannity has come up with 10 principles the Republican Party and its candidates should now adopt if they want to rebuild and regain the White House and control of Congress. Mr. Hannity states the principles in terms of a candidate's positions, but the principles make sense for advocacy and implementation at all times and most certainly right now with a new administration getting underway.

1. To be the candidate of national security. This is especially important at this moment, as one of the first things the Obama administration will do is come up with a national defense budget. Sen. Obama has expressed some wacky ideas some of which he has backed off of. But it is hard to know where he is at right now as he flip-flops, bounces around, tap dances, and gets lost in a sea of ambiguity and generality. For example, he has talked of cutting the budget for missile defense, which seems to be a foolhardy formula for national suicide. He has talked of cutting the development of weapons systems. And some of his wild liberal supporters, such as Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) have called for a 25 percent cut in defense spending. So this principle should not only be adopted now, but also pressed aggressively in the media, with Congress, and with the office of the president-elect. You should know from history that the Democrats have a weak military and weak defense systems in their DNA, and their tendencies to go in the wrong direction have to be fought at all times.

2. The candidate should pledge to oppose appeasement. This, too, is especially timely with the dictators of the world such as Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad making nice with Sen. Obama, and offering to talk on the terms that Sen. Obama so recklessly and dangerously suggested in this campaign. This too should be a major priority of the loyal opposition at this time. Appeasement, retreat and defeat have seemed to become a Democratic mantra. As I've suggested under an Obama administration, the "Do not tread on me flag" may have to be changed to "Do tread on me." As we await the first "test" of Sen. Obama by an American enemy, as predicted by Vice-President Elect Joe "Gaffe" Biden, we better get the appeasement mentality shaken out of the Democratic Party leadership. Unlike Teddy Roosevelt, who walked softly but carried a big stick, we have too many Democrats like Sen. Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), who walk softly and carry a white flag.

3. The candidate should pledge to support tax cuts and fiscal responsibility. Here the target has to be supporting tax cuts and certainly opposing tax increases for capital gains, dividends and small business. These are the economy-killers proposed by Sen. Obama, and they may still be in the pipeline. With the stock market diving in some recent days, perhaps the selling propensity might be slowed or stilled by Sen. Obama renouncing his insane pledge to raise the capital gains rate (even while knowing that it will cut, not increase, federal tax revenue), dividend rate, and perhaps all of his other proposed tax increases. (This will be discussed in tomorrow's column.)

4. The candidate should pledge to support energy independence. This ought to start with immediate authorization of off-shore drilling, drilling in Anwar and the rest of the U.S., building new refineries, starting to build new nuclear facilities, expansion of coal mining and exploiting alternative energy sources. This must all be done with realistic stewardship of the environment, and on a path to energy independence within 15 years. This has to be done here and now and as soon as possible. Unfortunately, Sen. Obama seems to have a tendency to confuse pretty speeches and fancy rhetoric with reality. For example, someone has pointed out Sen. Obama favors nuclear power, as long as it doesn't happen (just as he favors the death penalty, as long as no one is executed). Proceed with caution, as his pretty rhetoric is often the opposite of his hard reality.

5. The candidate should pledge to secure our borders completely within one year. That means building or finishing all necessary fences, training and hiring agents as needed and applying all available technology in support of this effort. This may prove difficult, as the Democrats are convinced that a dangerous open borders for all comers and a path to citizenship for all illegals (including amnesty) recruits voters for their party. As on so many issues, the Democrats put party over principle and power to themselves over national interest.

6. The candidate should support a free-market, private enterprise solution for healthcare. This means avoiding nationalizing health care, socializing health care, and bureaucratizing health care. One part of the solution is the creation and expansion of individual savings account, so as to give consumers more control over their choices and the financing of their healthcare. And one fiscal caution. We haven't figured out how to pay for Medicare and keep it solvent and within reasonable cost targets, In the face of that reality, how could Sen. Obama or anyone else entertain a vast expansion Medicare that would ruin the health care delivery system and bankrupt the federal government.

7. The candidate should support choice in education meaning giving parents the right to decide where their kids will go to school. This can be done through a voucher system. The Republicans should again point out to Sen. Obama that he sent his kids to private schools and avoided the failing public schools. All parents should have that same option even if they are not millionaires.

8. The candidate should pledge to save Social Security and Medicare from bankruptcy, and should, as one aspect of that, support creation of some private retirement accounts, giving people more control of their own investment and their retirement savings.

9. The candidate should pledge to appoint judges who will interpret the law and the U.S. Constitution rather than make laws and legislate their own views. Sen. Obama is already on record as favoring judges who empathize with victims. In other words, he wants judges deciding on emotion and abandoning the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution. This is perhaps just another Obama technique of spreading the wealth and bringing socialism to America.

10. The candidate should support the American dream. Mr. Hannity explains that as follows: "The candidate accepts as their duty and responsibility to educate, inform, and remind people that with the blessings of freedom comes a great responsibility. That government's primary goal is to preserve, protect and defend our God-given gift of freedom.

"That governments do not have the ability to solve all of our problems, and to take away all of our fears and concerns. We need their pledge that he will be the candidate that promotes individual liberty, capitalism, a strong national defense and that will support policies that encourage such.

"It is our fundamental belief that limited government, and greater individual responsibility will assure the continued prosperity and success for future generations.

"We the people who believe in the words of Ronald Reagan, that we are 'the best last hope of man on the earth and a shining city on a hill,' and that our best days are before us if our government will simply trust the American people."


Herb Denenberg is a former Pennsylvania Insurance Academy of the Sciences. His column appears daily in The Bulletin. You can reach him at advocate@thebulletin.us.