Thoughts on the March
The Post has a story today about how yesterday's march was, for many involved, their first political involvement. Well, from a political standpoint, it wasn't a bad start. The U.S. flags were certainly a nice touch, and the girl saying the pledge of allegiance was very good (check out Rob Bluey's photo gallery).
... Sure, Michelle Malkin's blog shows the behind-the-scenes orchestration of this event (what, it wasn't spontaneous!?). Anyone who works in politics knows that any event is scripted. She also has some webcam sex pictures of some non-Hispanic leftist radicals working the event (which is much more disturbing than the revelation that the organizers handed out the signs...).
Still, perception is reality, and most "undecided" viewers aren't going to read Michelle's blog. If the goal was to win public sympathy for their cause, this march came a lot closer than the previous demonstrations in California did.
However, I do have a few thoughts on where they may have missed the mark.
... As the Post noted, "Although the crowd was mostly Latino -- speakers' statements were routinely translated from English into Spanish ..."
The language barrier is a dilemma most previous marches have not had to overcome. Upon watching the footage, it occurred to me that the speeches in Spanish (while needed for communication) may have actually served to undermine the non-threatening and inclusive image the organizers were going for (what with all the American flags).
Think of it this way: Who was the target audience? Was it the people at the event? No. They are already in favor of this. The real audience was the average person at home, watching the march on TV. Only when you consider who the target audience truly is, will you understand my assessment.
On another note, clearly, part of the purpose of yesterday's march was to send a message to Republicans. However, the biggest mistake the organizers made was in planning a march when Congress is out of session. For the life of me, I can't figure that one out ...
Who knows? Maybe they should have hired a political consultant???
Sincerely
Yea right. Pelosi will no doubt be able to funnel through the media a positive message of combating internal corruption--just like Democrats circumvented a political albatross when 40 Democrat Senators were revealed to have taken money from Jack Abramoff. Hopefully someone will pick up on the inconsistency here: Pelosi calls for Jefferson's resignation from a committee, but calls for Tom Delay and Bill Ney's resignation from the House. Weird.
Twill be interesting to see if she continues to employ her popular "culture of corruption" invective...
In the interest of upholding the high ethical standard of the House Democratic Caucus, I am writing to request your immediate resignation from the Ways and Means Committee.
New Blog ...
As a movement conservative, you can count on me to actually tell you about competing blogs. As such, I'm recommending you check out the blog of a fellow Republican: Bill Pascoe.
... According to National Journal's "On Call" blog, Pascoe has:
smuggled cash and computers behind the Iron curtain
was a Hill CoS--is a former RNC spokesman and chief speechwriter
is a former nationally syndicated radio talk show host
wrote a column for the Washington Times for 10 years'
worked for the State Dept. on Central America
had the thankless job of being Bush-Quayle '88's liaison to conservatives
wrote his master's thesis on, among others, Sen. Chris Dodd
managed, in recent cycles, the campaigns of (ahem) Alan Keyes, David Vitter, Bret Schundler and Doug Forrester
runs Urquhart Media LLC today with three partners.
It's a good read. Enjoy!
Introducing ... The Boz!
Political sagacity does not usually accompany youthful impetuousness.
To try and prove me wrong, I welcome on board Alex Bozmoski, a seemingly perspicacious Georgetown University undergraduate. Boz will be joining the CLC team for a couple months, so we can look forward to his strategy memos.
He is 20 years old from Wisconsin, and is the founding chairman emeritus of Take Back Georgetown Day, the largest entirely student run conservative conference in the country.
He served as the Chief-of-staff for the GU College Republicans and ran his own conservative print publication, The Right Idea, for two years circulating 5,000 monthly in 8-states.
At Georgetown, Boz researches climate change policy and is starting to form a niche as a Republican environmental politics strategist.
He will be studying at Oxford University all next year.
Welcome to the team Boz!
Technology Rocks!
Enough Ned Lamont. On the Republican side, I like this Dick DeVos ad, titled: "Stay With Us."
As the Detroit News writes: "The ad is based on a jasminlive vlog, or video blog, that is featured each week on the DeVos campaign Web site. The vlogs generally feature the Ada businessman out on the campaign trail."
The campaign is even utilizing technology to talk about the ad ...
"It's a great way for people to have a real-time update on the activities of the campaign," DeVos campaign spokesman John Truscott said during a video chat with reporters Friday."
Vlogs? Vchats? Kudos to the DeVos vCampaign for utilizing technology!
Right off the bat
Winston asks, "how can Viguerie expect to be taken seriously when he advocates a strategy that would elect House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to Speaker and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to Senate Majority Leader?"
Were this conclusion intellectually honest, it would indeed be an indictment against Viguerie. But Viguerie never advocates that conservatives should sit out the upcoming elections. Nor does he wish that Democrats will control Congress. Instead, he merely advocates supporting conservative candidates directly, rather than working to fund the Free sex cams party committee's.
It's fine for Winston to disagree with this assertion, but he should not misrepresent Viguerie's position. Of course, his "out" is the word "strategy." He writes that Viguerie's "strategy" would lead to Democrats winning control of Congress -- but, of course, that is opinion being stated as fact.
Next, Winston is critical of Viguerie's opposition to Bush's "compassionate conservatism." I'm surprised that he takes such umbrage to this. After all, many fiscal conservatives have long been critical of what Viguerie cites as "the greatest increase in spending since Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society."
Again, you may disagree with Viguerie's opinion, but he is certainly not alone is pointing out where Bush has strayed from a fiscal conservative orthodoxy.
Most concerning, Winston criticizes Viguerie's position that conservatives should stand on principle, saying, "The last time Republicans suffered a temporary defeat, they didn't regain the House for 40 years, and a lot can happen in 40 years."
This is where it becomes clear that these two men are coming from completely different worldviews.
Most likely, Viguerie views examples of "standing on principle" through the lens of a conservative. He remembers losses that the conservative movement suffered -- like Goldwater in 1964 -- or Reagan in 1976 -- that ultimately made conservatives stronger. Most would agree these losses were extremely traumatic to conservatives (at the time), but they ultimately paved the way for conservative victories in 1980 and 1994.
At the end of the day, it is clear that the way you view Viguerie's column depends on your worldview: If you are a conservative first, you agree with him. If you are a Republican first, you don't.
Winston is entitled to his own opinion -- but not his own facts. In this instance, he has misrepresented Viguerie's position.
Winston may simply resent Viguerie's willingness to break Reagan's "11th Commandment" and openly criticize a fellow Republican (it does not escape me that the only way for a Republican to get a op-ed in the Post is to criticize a fellow Republican.)
But I think that debate is a healthy bi-product of Democracy and should be encouraged, not discouraged. I also find it odd for someone to attack Viguerie for merely re-stating positions that have long been advocated by many in the conservative movement.
Lastly, I think that as a founding father of the conservative movement, Richard Viguerie has earned our respect -- even if we disagree with him.
What Agenda?
Apparantly, some members of the Pelosi Posse aren't exactly sure what the "New Direction for America" is, over three weeks since the "watershed" unveiling of the Democrats' new slogan.
It's kind of reminiscent of the outcome of the annual Roll Call Congressional baseball game earlier this week (12-1 GOP on top), after which Rep. William Jefferson philosophized, "We started out great and fizzled from there."
Roll Call: '"The Congressional baseball games are a lot like the elections. Democrats usually start off ahead, they end up losing big and the [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] chairman always tries to spin it into a 'moral victory,'" said National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds (NY). "I want to congratulate [Rep.] Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) on another moral victory."
It'll be hard for Dems to spin off even a moral victory until they bring order to their rat's nest of a Party.