Posted by
Steve on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 11:01:53 AM
NOTE: BECAUSE TH IS SO HARD TO USE, I HAVE A BACK-UP BLOG ON: HTTP://CAMP2008VICTORYA.BLOGSPOT.COM. (SEE LINK ON BLOGROLL)
If it gets any harder to post on TH -- or even to get on the site -- it could begin to make me angry. Currently, I regard TH, which has some fine people associated with it, as a net negative for Republicanism and the conservative movement. The "base," something not to be confused with the Republican Party, consists of too many racists, nativists, and single-issue fanatics. The comments sections in TH occasionally begin to look like correspondence from the locked wards of a mental institution.
Today, I'll talk about some of the things that bother me about TH -- and link it to the reasons I so strongly support Sarah Palin as a national leader in the Party. We desperatedly need new blood in the Party. We need fewer of the nutcases that we find all around us.
Early this a.m., I read Sandy Froman's essay in
TH celebrating the Supreme Court's overturning of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation. Ms. Froman is a past president of the NRA and, as the short bio points out, "the first Jewish American" (and probably the last?) to hold such a position. I found the reference to Ms. Froman's religion gratuitious and offensive.
I support the Second Amendment. However, I don't find that incompatible with taking common sense steps to reduce the orgy of gun violence that prevails in the U.S. -- and in no other developed country. The far Right's "politics-of-just-say-no-to-everything" is disgusting good people and driving them away from the Party.
I don't support the NRA's paranoid style, where it exists in a perpetual panic that Teddy Kennedy is going to show up at the door and take away their Glocks. I resent the NRA's unwillingness to work with decent people who want to keep guns out of the hands of "Mr. Cho" and others like him. The NRA doesn't care enough about guns getting into the hands of children, criminals, mental defectives, and people at high risk of committing crimes (such as those with restraining orders).
Here's my response to Ms. Froman (it's about the third comment, right after two nitwits hooting and hollering about matters such as Hillary Clinton's supposed "Communism"):
"Sandy, Sandy, Sandy: this is another one of those programmatic essays where the writer wants to fire on the enemy, but instead take the gun, sticks it in her ear, and pulls the trigger. The Democrats and their associates (George Soros and friends) raise a LOT more money than the Republicans. If you don't have money -- and check with the RNC to see how little is coming in -- you still have free speech. However, you don't have enough money to purchase a bullhorn (let alone buy TV ads). I believe your essay is wrong in nearly ever particular, but I realize that my points -- based on mere dollars and cents -- cannot overcome the commitment to ideological purity."
"Right now, in the House the Democrats have 180-plus safe seats. Howard Jefferson (Howard Jefferson!) won re-election easily. Check and see how much money Murtha ($3.5 million in the last election), Pelosi, Rangel, Hoyer, and on and on have in the bank. These people will NEVER have real electoral competition.
"Are these points really debatable? Why don't you (Ms. Froman) mention them? We really don't want a situation where we say the following, 'The country is in ruins, but the NRA still stands.'"
"Perhaps the much-maligned John McCain is the wisest man in the Republican Party -- not a hard position to attain these days. He may just perceive that we're in for another 50 years of money shortfalls where the Democrats control the Congress, and we take whatever is left over."
"There are serious problems with campaign finance. The current system turns into an 'Incumbents' Re-election Fund.' The Republican 'fat cats' of yesteryear are now giving their money to the Democrats. And Republicans have nothing even roughly similar in effectiveness to Moveon.org and other 527 hate groups"
"My fellow Republicans, in the supposed era of global warming, prepare for the longest political winter in recorded history."
Steve
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=dismantling_campaign_finance_reform_restoring_your_free_speech&ns=SandyFroman&dt=06/25/2007&page=full&comments=trueSadly, you won't hear much honest discussion of campaign finance on TH. People on the site would rather persist in a perpetual ideological frenzy than discuss real problems and come up with real solutions. Keep my column in mind next week when the campaign finance reports come out and show the Democrats awash in money and the Republicans holding out their tin cups.