Against the Pledge
by Patrick Ruffini :: January 26th, 2007 5:47 pmI am just as disappointed as anyone that some Republican Senators seem so spooked by the last election that they are willing to sign on to the nonbinding resolution.
But I don’t think The Pledge is the right way to go about fixing it.
The reason these Republicans are scurrying around is twofold. One is the difficult situation on the ground in Iraq. The second is the thumpin’. Losing the majority gave these 2008 Republicans the political cover they needed to distance themselves from the President.
The lesson is that elections matter. If you don’t want defeatism on the agenda, then you need to keep the defeatists from power.
One of the reasons we lost the Senate by such a narrow margin was the NRSC was weighed down by Lincoln Chafee, its scattershot targeting (trying to shoot the moon in Michigan, Washington, and New Jersey), and the significant money advantage enjoyed by Chuck Schumer and the DSCC. The election of the extremely capable John Ensign as NRSC Chair is a welcome relief. And we need to give him the space to do what he needs to do to turn the NRSC around, not as some abstract policymaking arm, but as a state of the art political machine that wins elections.
It’s one thing to target one Senator when you’ve got 55. It’s another to be doing this in the minority and undermine at least four Senators up for re-election, whose departure or defeat could leave us with 45 seats. Say what you will about Senators Smith, Coleman, Collins, and Warner — but they are not Chafees. I have a problem with a policy that makes no distinction between Chuck Hagel, who has been consistently wrong on the central issue of our time, and 80% Republicans like the ones The Pledge targets.
I’m sorry, but we gave up this luxury when we crossed from the majority into the minority. Again, the reason that otherwise good Republicans are going wobbly is because we lost in 2006. The answer is victory in 2008. Maybe the base could afford to bail on the NRSC when the Senate majority was thought to be safe — and we now know it wasn’t. That’s not an option this time, not now with a strong leader like Senator Ensign at the helm.
See also Josh Trevino and John Hawkins on this critical subject.
Tagged: chuck hagel 
john ensign nrsc pledge senate
Comments (16) 
Trackbacks (0) 
del.icio.us 
digg it 
subscribe
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Patrick, I agree with Bill and Hugh Hewitt here. The professional politicos and pundits are playing their normal balancing act, rationalizing why this is not a big deal, but this is no normal debate. This is about winning or losing a crucial war and all bets are off in my book. I would never support the pledge in any other circumstance but this is more than political posturing. This is war against a virulent evil — not a political game. Time to get real.
Patrick, I disagree with you. One of the reasons that we lost the election was because we were perceived as weak by our Republican base. A lot of them stayed home, and some even voted for Democratrs. We can’t continue to support Republican Senators who do not support the President. I agree entirely with Bill and Michael.
Might I suggest a different “Pledge” might be a political solution that saves us from a bloody civil war in 2008.
Have NRSC Chairman Ensign pledge NOT to spend any committee funds protecting GOP incumbent senators from primary challengers.
If folks like Hagel, Coleman, Collins and Graham want to alienate other Republicans, they can fight their own battles. Let’s save our scarce resources on fighting the Democrats
This pledge will cause those wavering now to realize the path of Lincoln Chafee is the path to demise, perhaps preventing primary challenges rather than causing them
Patrick, I do not agree with you. These Senators who are sacrificing principle for politics telescope their weakness and are increasing their vulnerability. They are protecting nothing (i.e., their re-elction chances) with their shameful actions. They deserve to lose and are increasing the liklihood of that happening, rather than dimishing it.
Sorry, Patrick, but I have to disagree with you on this one.
Better to be in a minority that upholds principles than to be in a majority with no reason for being there (as happened in 2004-2006).
I kind of figured that I wouldn’t be the most popular guy in the room after I wrote this.
Each and every one of us has the right to not write a check in support of any candidate we want. This isn’t what this is about.
What this is about is forfeiting the field to Chuck Schumer for the second election in a row. And it matters because we actually have competent leadership at the NRSC this time. If we do this, we lose — plain and simple.
Had the pledge stopped with a promise to not financially support the campaigns of any of the Republican Senators involved, or if we went with Ironman’s compromise above, this effort would be a lot more palatable.
A Senator’s behavior on a single vote, no matter how important that vote, isn’t cause enough to undermine the re-election of every Republican Senator up in 2008.
Okay, Patrick you did cause me to rethink this. But, I still don’t want my contribution (meager as it may be) to reward those who are selling out only for themselves, and who forget about the supporters and voters who put them precisely where they are now - in, sadly, a place of shame, rather than pride. So, I rethought . . . but, honestly, I can go on-line and contribute to any Senator in any state that I so choose (thanks to innovators such as yourself!) and I don’t have to contribute to a group kitty that rewards to good, the bad, and the ugly. I stopped ALL group contributions last year, because of Lincoln Chafee, and instead sought out individuals on the internet that I wanted to support.
Patrick, in a two-party system such as ours, in such a huge and diverse country, there will always be a tension between two possible outcomes in the parties themselves.
One is for the parties to stake out clear and divergent stands on several key issues, and to contest elections on the basis of those positions.
The other is for parties to become competing clubs vying over the same turf, for incumbency and its privileges. Vacillation, deals, blurring of policies and outcomes result, but essentially the political classes pursue their own interests while the philosophical issues go unresolved.
Clearly the GOP lost its way after 1995 and increasingly after 2002. While the nation faces challenges that need resolution through debate and argumentation between competing political philosophies, the political classes and the GOP Senate in particular shirk their duties. Because it is hard, and because it might lead to consequences like an election loss. So just become a Democrat-lite, keep your head down, and maybe your state will send you back to the good life for another six years… Unless they feel some heat over first principles, they will take the easy way out.
I like Ironman’s compromise and could support such a pledge. I continue to believe that Republicans need to make up their mind whether they are Republicans, or simply Democrats running under the protection of the Republican banner. Many of the Republican senators, Hagel, Specter, etc. seem to fit into this category. I have always supported Republican candidates, but am now prepared to stop unless they begin to support the Republican issues that i believe in.
Some things ARE more important than others. Casting a war vote is one of those things. Once that is done, the enemy engaged, victory is the only course left.
Voting for the war, then saying to the troops who sacrifice, I’m sorry, I made a mistake — That is the sorriest excuse for a Senator I know of. It is even worse if you plan on applying for the job of commander in chief. How can any honorable person do this? The nonsense about Bush salting the intelligence is nonsense, these people had access to all the intelligence, to make their decisions. If you look at Clinton’s Iraq quotes from 1998 on, tell me where he was getting his intelligence? Tell me what he said that was different than Bush. The only person to ever say Iraq was an imminent threat was none other than the now chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee — Why would he do that in a floor speech if he had no information.
This whole line of reasoning is disgraceful, saying Bush salted the intelligence is nonsensical on it’s face.
There are no mulligans when it comes to war votes, none, nada zip.
Patrick,
I understand your role requires that you oppose any movement to withhold the grease (money) that keeps the machinery humming. Having said that, the NRSC is not going to get funding from a lot of conservatives. We are not going to return to a majority if our candidates are nothing but a slightly different version of politician than the Dems. In 1994 Republicans came to power because they promised something radically different. Instead of contesting individual races separately, Newt Gingrich campaigned expressly to get a majority with specific promises (Contract with America). If the Republicans are going to include folks of Hagel’s ilk or sadly misguided people like Collins, Warner etc then why should anyone contribute to elect them? It may be several elections cycles before the NRSC recovers from supporting Chafee. Regular folks looked at that goof (he bragged that he didn’t vote for Bush in 2004, he didn’t vote for Alito, he derailed John Bolton) and knew he didn’t deserve financial support. However, the NRSC only saw the (R) after his name and nothing else.
I don’t think the loss in 2006 explains “otherwise good Republicans going wobbly” at all. Warner, Collins, McCain et al have been “wobbly” for a very long time, and even were so when they were elected. Also remember the “gang of fourteen”? That was before the 2006 elections.
It’s a damn war and there is only one person trying to win it, Bush. I don’t need any CIA decoder ring when I can read all about it on-line. I refuse to give money or vote for anyone who does not stand for victory. OBL declared war on us, Clinton said what? And then look what happened — 9/11.
I am all for the big tent, but there is a time when you call for loyalty. When our country is under attack, that is the time. Have we forgot that?
It would be different if the anti-war people had anything to offer but defeat. To not support the President’s plan is to not support our troops and their sacrifice, it’s just disgusting.
As for throwing money into Chafee’s re-election, that was just stupid.