Shakespeare and the Republican Party

[Guest Contributor - Donald G. Mutersbaugh, Sr.]

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's [Read the Republican Party’s] but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury

Signifying nothing.”

— Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28) [Modified, with apologies]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_and_tomorrow_and_tomorrow

Undoubtedly, this is one of Shakespeare’s most famous soliloquies. What I didn't realize, however, is that apparently there was a Republican Party in the 1600’s! Or so it would seem. The other day when I was rereading some of the works of Shakespeare, I found this passage from Macbeth; and for some reason the Republican Party jumped into my brain. Putting the academic interpretation aside, I thought to myself: what a perfect quote to describe the Republican Party in today's Congress. There is no focus. There is no leadership. It just seems that there are elected officials calling for this hearing or that hearing; getting in front of cameras and railing about what an inept and corrupt Administration we have; complaining about budget deficits and spending; the litany goes on and on. And yet when all is said and done, the people who have the ability to put an end to these disgraceful events are absent or unaccounted for. They are able to bluster and talk a good game; but where are the action events that will actually lead to accountability? Why can't we put those who are responsible under oath and give them the questions that are necessary to find out what really happened?

The only thing good that may come out of all of the recent, cascading revelations of misdeeds is that the mainstream media seems to be finally getting engaged. I suspect it took an event like the Associated Press fiasco to make them realize that this Administration was wielding the sword of Damocles. Conservative groups have long had this imminent sense of foreboding and actual peril. USA Today reports: “Other than press reports, we have no knowledge of any attempt by the Justice Department to seek phone records of the AP," Carney said."We are not involved in decisions made in connection with criminal investigations, as those matters are handled independently by the Justice Department."…. Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, are seeking to tie the three incidents together.”

What? The Republican Party cannot even handle one incident by itself; and they're going to tie the three incidents together? USA Today continues:

“The AP also reported that the government would not say why it sought the phone records:

"Officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have provided information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al-Qaeda plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.””

Well, there's another tough nut to crack. I wonder what the results of that investigation are going to yield?

I have not been able to determine why the Republican Party continues to give this Administration a pass on all the tough questions that should be asked. Is it because of satisficing? Or, is it because of bounded rationality? Or, maybe it is because of rational ignorance? It certainly isn't because of optimal decision-making because when all is said and done, concerned citizens are still waiting for answers and actions.

I would suggest that Congress should focus its efforts into a logical, goal directed outcome. What happened; why is it important; what is the truth and what are the conclusions; and what am I going to do about it? All of this should be known about each event before anybody goes to the media. What are the desired ends?

May I suggest a methodology to be employed: praxeology.

“Praxeology in turn is a subset of Human Action. It is the examination of all those theories that propose general attributes of non-instinctive action. The most basic theory that is at the root of all praxeological inquiry is this: Every non-instinctive action is the selection of more over less preferable means and their subsequent application to attain a deliberately chosen end.”

http://www.economicsjunkie.com/praxeology/

“Praxeology is the deductive study of human action based on the action axiom. [Wikipedia]

An action axiom is an axiom that embodies a criterion for recommending action. Action axioms are of the form "If a condition holds, then the following should be done". [Wikipedia]

An axiom, or postulate, is a premise or starting point of reasoning. As classically conceived, an axiom is a premise so evident as to be accepted as true without controversy.” [Wikipedia]

“Well done is better than well said.” Benjamin Franklin knew what he was talking about….

_______________________________________________________

Donald G. Mutersbaugh, Sr. earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Maryland and his Master of Business Administration degree from Mary Washington College. He is the former Associate Administrator of Information Resources for the U.S House of Representatives under Speaker Newt Gingrich.

The Icarus Presidency

Irony abounds as events unravel the best laid plans of the Obama Administration. A terrorist attack made the Bush Presidency. Now a terrorist attack is unmaking Obama’s.

It was the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 that launched President George W. Bush into a heroic trajectory. The attack rallied America and the world to a Presidency that had been born in controversy and mired in mediocrity. Emboldened by a real mandate, Bush and the Republican Party played out their strong hand, winning the 2002 off-year elections and galloping to a solid re-election in 2004. However, their hubris made them sloppy. Poorly planned adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq became expensive and bloody quagmires. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina exposed epic incompetence and the failings of a crony-ridden Administration. The Republicans imploded, losing the Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008. Except for the Tea Party boomlet of 2010, they have wandered in the political wilderness ever since.

The April 15, 2013 terrorist attack in Boston is having the opposite effect on President Obama. His Administration began with a solid win wrapped in idealism and the promise of historic changes. Despite the Tea Party Congressional backlash of 2010, Obama moved his agenda and his world view forward.

After his decisive re-election on November 6, 2012, Obama took full advantage of shell-shocked Republicans. He outmaneuvered Republicans on tax increases and the debt ceiling, but stumbled on maximizing the Sequester’s impact to support his assertion that “government is the solution”. His Sequester missteps, and the desert whirlwind swirling around the September 11, 2012 Benghazi attack, seemed to be contained in the political margins of Fox News and conservative talk radio. Then two bombs destroyed the calm of Boston. Their ripple effects have become a tsunami potentially pushing Obama into early lame duck status or worse.

Obama’s world view, trumpeted by the mainstream media, is that once you eliminate Osama bin Laden the global war on terror can move to the back burner. On May 2, 2011, Obama took credit for a nearly ten year search and destroy mission led by career intelligence officials. With Osama dead, and remote controlled drones picking off terrorists at will, America was safe.

The Boston attack jarred Americans back to reality. Questions about CIA and FBI complacency, causing them to miss early warning signs, have yet to be adequately addressed. Obama’s and the mainstream media’s rush to dismissively compare the Tsarnaev brothers with the Columbine shooters opened the door for questioning the Administration’s competence and their motivations.

Obama’s failure to control perceptions about Boston are echoed in Obama’s containment strategy on the Benghazi attack, which is falling apart every minute highly credible career officials remain in front of Congressional and media microphones. Was Obama’s rush to brand the Benghazi attack as a demonstration gone tragically wrong part of a larger scheme to create a false parallel world? Once Americans start looking at Osama’s death as a side show, not the finale, in the war on terror then everything is open for inquiry. Did Obama and Clinton hamper rescue efforts and then investigations in order to maintain the fiction of “game over”? Did intelligence agencies succumb to this “game over” mentality and not ring any alarm bells on the Tsarnaevs and their friends? Is Obama covering something up? Did Obama’s obsession with the “game over” story line lead to American deaths in Benghazi and Boston?

Obama’s growing problems with Benghazi and Boston have other ripple effects. The moment terrorists can move at will and undetected between America and their home bases immigration reform becomes less about pandering for Hispanic votes and more about homeland security. The moment terrorists combine pressure cookers, toy batteries, and fireworks into devices to cause mass carnage; gun control becomes less about removing weapons from violent people and more about the violent people themselves. Obama’s winter policy momentum has bogged down in reality.

Obama’s wax wings are melting under the bright light of scrutiny. Obamacare, his one soaring accomplishment, is now crumbling into a morass of “devil is in the detail” disclosures. The Stock Market may be reaching new heights, but the work force is falling to new lows as Americans take poor paying part time jobs and watch their spending capabilities shrink.

All these reality checks are breaching the rhetorical fortifications of Obama, the Democrats in Congress, and their media acolytes. The moment mainstream Americans openly wonder about what is really going on, there is no secondary line of defense behind which Obama and his supporters can regroup. Republicans sense an opportunity, but they remain in a wilderness of their own making with little interest in becoming self-aware or competent.

Leaders across America’s political spectrum desperately need to go to rehab. Until then, they will continue their respective plummets.

Origin of the Republican Party

Published as part of Constituting America's "constitution reader" series

"90 in 90: History Holds the Key to the Future" in cooperation with Hillsdale College.

http://www.constitutingamerica.org/blog/blog/2013/05/02/thursday-may-2-essay-54-republican-party-platform-of-1856-guest-essayist-scott-faulkner-first-chief-administrative-officer-of-the-u-s-house-of-representatives/

Reference document -
http://www.constitutingamerica.org/blog/blog/2013/05/02/republican-party-platform-of-1856-reprinted-from-the-u-s-constitution-a-reader-published-by-hillsdale-college/

ESSAY #54 REPUBLICAN PARTY PLATFORM of 1856

By Scot Faulkner

The Republican Party Platform of 1856 is the most important political platform in American history. It coalesced diverse factions into a new political movement that would dominate American politics for the next 76 years, winning 14 of the next 19 Presidential elections. It also signaled the end of 36 years of political obfuscation on the issue of slavery in America, ultimately leading to the Civil War. The Republican Party Platform of 1856, more than any other platform in American history, was designed to codify a new political philosophy and to solidify a coalition of highly fractious political forces into a cogent and compelling movement.

This new political party, with its history changing manifesto, arose out of a long and complex sequence of events. The RESOLVED provisions of the 1856 Republican Platform reflect the pathways that brought diverse political leaders and factions together for their first national political convention on July 6, 1856 in Jackson, Michigan.

In the 1850s, America’s civic culture was crumbling. Decades of political compromise and avoidance on the issue of slavery had maintained an uneasy peace. The Mexican-American War (1846-47) added over 500,000 square miles to the U.S. and rekindled sectional competition. Ralph Waldo Emerson prophesied, “The United States will conquer Mexico, but it will be as the man swallows the arsenic, which brings him down in turn. Mexico will poison us.” [1]

The carefully orchestrated balance between Northern/Free states and Southern/Slave states in the U.S. Senate had only been maintained by tightly controlling the admission of new states to the Union. In 1820, Missouri was ready to be admitted as a “slave” state. Their Senate votes were to be off-set by separating the northern part of Massachusetts into the new “free” state of Maine. A key part of this Missouri Compromise of 1820 was to limit expansion of “slave states” to below a line, parallel 36°30′ north. However, after the Mexican War, Texas, California, and many other potential states, clamored for admission into the Union, reawakening the slumbering sectional strife and the “free” versus “slave” state controversy.

In 1850, a new Compromise was approved. This was a package of five separate bills that maintained the North/South balance in the Senate by allowing California to join the Union as a free state, even though its southern border dipped below the 1820 slave demarcation line. This was balanced by admitting Texas as a slave state. Other provisions balanced ending the slave trade in Washington, DC with strengthening the Fugitive Slave Act.

The Compromise of 1850 was the last great moment for the Whig Party. This party rose as a counter to the Jacksonian Democrats in the late 1830s. It thrived by broadly promoting westward expansion without a conflict with Mexico, supporting transportation infrastructure projects, and protecting fledgling American businesses with tariffs. The Whigs also benefited from having stellar leaders in the U.S. Senate, like Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, and attracting popular war heroes to run as their presidential candidates. The reawakening of sectional competition ended their brief moment of political ascendancy.

In 1848, the Whig Party split on slavery with pro-freedom/anti-Mexican War "Conscience Whigs" and pro-slavery "Cotton Whigs" ("lords of the lash" allied with "lords of the loom"). [2] They still stumbled across the 1848 Presidential finish line with Mexican War hero Zachery Taylor. Unfortunately, food poisoning led to Taylor’s death on July 9, 1850 ushering in the Presidency of anti-immigrant Millard Filmore and his “No-nothing” nativist movement. In 1852, the highly divided Whig Party needed 53 roll call votes to nominate another war hero, Winfield Scott, only to lose in a landslide to Pro-slavery Democrat Franklin Pierce. Rep. Alexander Stephens, a “Cotton Whig” pronounced, “the Whig Party is dead.” [3]

The implosion of the Whigs, and the new sectional rivalry, launched new parties, and factions within parties. These reflected the wide range of opinions on slavery from zealous support of slavery every where possible to immediate abolition every where possible. In the middle were factions that wanted to maintain the Union through various forms of compromise, allowing slavery some places, but not others.

This cauldron of factionalism came to a boil in 1854.

It began with the proposed trans-continental railroad to California. Southerners wanted the rail line to take a southern route. James Gadsden, Pierce’s Ambassador to Mexico, negotiated the purchase of Mexican lands in what is now the southern border of Arizona and New Mexico on December 30, 1853 to assure sufficient rights-of-way through less mountainous terrain.

The north wanted a northern route that began at St. Louis, Missouri and linked to Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. Most northern business leaders favored the northern route and felt that organization of the Nebraska Territory would facilitate this decision. However, rival factions within Missouri wanted control of the route and the potential fortunes to be made from land speculation. Pro-slave forces threatened to block any efforts to organize Nebraska because Missouri would then be surrounded on its west, east, and north by free states. Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas, a key architect of the Compromise of 1850 and Chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories, wanted to help his business supporters and avoid a confrontation with southerners. [4] The seventh RESOLVED of the Republican’s 1856 platform reaffirms building of this transcontinental railroad

On January 4, 1854, Douglas introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Act. This act repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and opened the entire territory to popular or “squatter” sovereignty for determining whether the territories would be free or slave. At this time the Nebraska Territory encompassed the entire Louisiana Purchase from the Missouri Compromise line to the Canadian Border. Indiana Representative George Washington Julian, who would serve as the Chairman of the Committee on Organization for the 1856 Republican Convention, commented, “The whole question of slavery was thus re-opened.” [5]

The debate on the Kansas-Nebraska Act was tumultuous. Ohio Senator, Salmon Chase, published, "The Appeal of the Independent Democrats in Congress to the People of the United States", in the New York Times on January 24, 1854. He declared the abandonment of the Missouri Compromise a, “gross violation of a sacred pledge” and an “atrocious plot” to convert free territory into a “dreary region of despotism, inhabited by masters and slaves.” [6] These sentiments are echoed in the second and third RESOLVES of the Republican’s 1856 platform.

Anti-slavery “Free Soil” party activists along with anti-slavery “Conscience Whigs” and “Barn Burner” Democrats held anti-Nebraska meetings and rallies across the north. These meetings in the winter and spring of 1854 were the earliest stirrings of the Republican Party. The anti-Nebraska meeting held in a Congregational church in Ripon, Wisconsin on February 28, 1854, is considered the formal beginning of the Republican Party. This meeting led to the Republican state convention in Madison, Wisconsin on July 13, which nominated the first slate of Republicans for that fall’s election. [7].

The Kansas-Nebraska Act passed the Senate in March and the House of Representatives in early May. President Pierce signed the bill into law on May 30, 1854. New York Senator William H. Seward responded to victorious southern Senators by stating, “Since there is no escaping your challenge, I accept it in behalf of the cause of freedom. We will engage in a competition for the virgin soil of Kansas, and God give the victory to the side which is stronger in numbers as it is in right.” [8] Both pro and anti slave forces moved into the Kansas territory engaging in brutal guerilla warfare over the next five years. The sporadic civil war in what became known as “Bleeding Kansas” even spilled into the U.S. Senate chamber. On May 22, 1856, South Carolina Representative, Preston Brooks assaulted Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner in the Senate Chamber, bludgeoning him into unconsciousness. [9] The fourth and fifth RESOLVES of the Republican’s 1856 platform recommend a swift resolution of the Kansas dispute in favor of it being a free state and assails the Pierce Administration for its role in causing so much harm.
On October 9-11, 1854, President Pierce’s Secretary of State, William L. Marcy, met with the Administration’s European ambassadors in Ostend, Belgium to discuss the possibility of the United States purchasing or invading Cuba and bringing it into America as a slave state. The resulting dispatch was the infamous Ostend Manifesto or Circular. This gave official sanction to years of free lance efforts by Southern slave zealots (known as filibusters) to bring slave holding parts of Central and South America into the Union and further inflamed northern opposition. This is the basis of the sixth RESOLVED of the Republican’s 1856 platform.

The 1856 Presidential campaign was waged in a chaotic environment. The fragmented Democratic Party competed with the fragments of the Whig Party over slavery. The newly formed “Free Soil”, “Opposition”, and “North American” parties competed with the fledgling Republican Party. Lurking in the wings was the “No Nothing” Party that focused on stopping immigration into the U.S. and restricting citizenship for recently arrived immigrants.

There was much behind the scenes negotiations and deals to consolidate factions into the new Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln spent most of 1855-1856 building a new coalition among the factions and even among politicized newspapers in Illinois. [10] As George Washington Julian later explained, “The dispersion of the old parties was one thing, but the organization of their fragments into a new one on a just basis was quite a different thing.” [11] The ninth RESOLVED in the Republican’s 1856 platform reflects this matrix of deals and arrangements that created a true coalition movement.

The first Republican Presidential Nominating Convention was held in the Musical Fund Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on June 17-19, 1856. Pro-slavery assaults in Kansas and the U.S. Senate during May emboldened the delegates to be more explicit in their anti-slavery position. [12] The delegates also felt the Republicans had a good chance of winning the Presidential election of 1856. They almost did. Pennsylvania Representative Thaddeus Stevens called the surprisingly close loss a “victorious defeat” and Indiana Representative Schuyler Colfax compared it to the Battle of Bunker Hill. [13]

Republican delegates sensed they had a historic opportunity and expanded their platform beyond planks focused on anti-slavery and infrastructure to articulate their philosophy on the role of government. These sentiments are outlined in the preamble and the first RESOLVED and woven in as themes in the second, fourth, eighth and ninth RESOLVES. This approach to limited government, grounded in our nation’s founding principles, allowed an embryonic coalition of renegades to become the dominant political movement for the next seventy-six years. These core beliefs guide the Republican Party to this day.

Scot Faulkner served as the first Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives and was Director of Personnel for Reagan-Bush 1980. You may read his columns at http://citizenoversight.blogspot.com

NOTES

[1] McPherson, James, Battle Cry of Freedom (Oxford University Press, New York, 1988) page 51.

[2] Ibid., page 60.

[3] Ibid., page 118.

[4] Mayer, George H., The Republican Party 1854-1966 Second Edition (Oxford University Press, New York, 1966) page 25.

[5] Julian, George Washington, Political Recollections; Anthology - America; Great Crises in Our History Told by its Makers; Vol. VII (Veterans of Foreign Wars, Chicago, 1925) page 212.

[6] Op. Cit., McPherson, page 124.

[7] Op. Cit., Mayer, page 26.

[8] Op. Cit. McPherson, page 145.

[9] Op. Cit. McPherson, page 150.

[10] Op. Cit., Mayer, pages 38-39.

[11] Gould, Lewis L, Grand Old Party; A History of the Republicans (Random House, New York, 2003) page 5.

[12] Ibid., page 18.

[13] Op. Cit. Mayer, page 47.

Pat McCrory’s Weird Science

This was published in the News Observer

http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/04/30/2860925/denrs-new-mission-takes-wrong.html

By Scot Faulkner & Jonathan Riehl

There was a time when Republicans embraced Earth Day, established the Environmental Protection Agency, and considered stewardship of the environment a cornerstone of assuring America’s future. Those days now seem very far away as Republicans, including Governor McCory, are increasingly rejecting environmental protection and empirical science.

Prior to McCory becoming Governor, North Carolina had a solid reputation for environmental stewardship. This stewardship was grounded in constructive engagement between two co-equal state agencies. The Department of Commerce (DC) is the welcome mat and advocate for new and expanding businesses. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is the enforcer of the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), and the advocate for those impacted by the externalities of new and expanding businesses. Each agency has a noble mission that benefits the state now and into the future. Pure environmentalism can hamper the creation of economic opportunity and job growth. Pure economic development can permanently scar a landscape, cause harm to people’s health, and eradicate qualities of life and community that attract business.

Therefore, a balance must be struck between competing interests and missions. The role of the EC and DENR are to prepare their best briefs and constructively engage interested parties, and the public at large, to help determine this balance, while articulating the trade-offs that inevitably occur when competing interests interact.

The DENR, prior to Governor McCrory had a straightforward mission statement that supported this effort: “To conserve and protect North Carolina’s natural resources and to maintain an environment of high quality by providing valuable services that consistently support and benefit the health and well-being of all citizens of our state.”

When McCory became Governor the DENR revised its mission statement to fundamentally change its role. The changes are significant and deserve attention from anyone, regardless of party, who cares about science and conservation. This revision, by new DENR Secretary, John Skvarla (McCrory’s appointee), marks a terrible change in direction for a state department, but has received only limited media attention.

The new mission statement alters the very definition of science. The DENR document now tells us that science “contains diversity of opinion” and “all public programs and scientific conclusions must be reflective of input from a variety of legitimate, diverse and thoughtful perspectives.”

Not so. Science is not based on “opinion” or “thoughtful perspectives.” Science contains a body of knowledge arrived at through testing and experimentation. Ironically, this is what conservative thought -- in politics and policy in general -- has always emphasized. Now we are told any perspective, regardless of its having been tested, deserves equal time.

Second, the new mission statement emphasizes “cost-benefit analysis” in environmental policy. The damages caused by bad environmental policy are not calculable in immediate terms in the same way an actuary determines how much a new car depreciates when it leaves the lot. Environmental damage is long term and affects not only the resources available to future generations, but also our national heritage. There can be no “cost-benefit” consideration of the Great Smoky Mountains, Outer Banks beaches, or Civil War historic sites protected from mining, foresting, or other development. How many dollars is it worth to take your family to these parks? What is the true value of sites that define our state and national identity?

Third, the McCrory administration redefines the DENR as a “service organization.” It is not. The Department is a regulatory body charged with enforcing laws, including the federal rules of the Environmental Protection Agency. The clear implication of the McCrory version suggests nullification of federal law -- that the DENR will “service” the political choices of the Governor, not enforce the law. Governor McCrory and Secretary Skvarla should remember that the DENR’s environmental regulatory powers are delegated to them by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In 2001, EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, President Bush’s Republican appointee, stripped this delegation from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, and directly managed the state’s enforcement process, to prevent the state agency from becoming a doormat for developers. This could be the remedy in North Carolina should the McCrory/Skvarla vivisection of environment law and science continues.

Pat McCrory -- who has portrayed himself as a moderate -- is sending dangerously extreme signals to the new conservative radicals who want pander to anti-conservationist extremists.

The two authors here have different political perspectives, but value the real conservative legacy of responsible governance and custodianship of our planet. These new radical “conservatives” (we use quotation marks intentionally) should not be allowed to highjack that legacy. In the words of this new DENR mission statement we detect a highjacking in progress, emblematic of the larger self-destruction of the real conservative movement.

Scot Faulkner was Personnel Director for Reagan-Bush and the Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives. Jonathan Riehl, J.D., Ph.D., is a communications consultant for political campaigns and national nonprofit organizations and former speechwriter for Luntz Research, and instructor in Communications Studies.

Republican Dilemma

By Scot Faulkner & Jonathan Riehl

What happens when a Republican candidate is damaged goods? This is the dilemma facing Republicans in the May 7 special election for South Carolina’s 1stCongressional District. The Republican leaning district should have attracted top tier candidates, but after the primary and run off voters are confronted with the ghost of scandals past – former Governor and Representative Mark Sanford.

This is the last thing Republicans needed. Sanford clearly has moral issues; otherwise he would still be married to his first wife and mother to his four children. He is not ethical, otherwise he would not have lied to everyone about his affair, diverted state funds for personal use, and been censured by a 102-11 vote by the South Carolina House of Representatives. His intelligence is questionable, given everything he did to self-immolate in 2009.

Until his fantasy trip on the Appalachian Trail, which to the surprise of everyone extended all the way to Buenos Aires, Sanford was a respected fiscal conservative. Sanford was even making motions towards a presidential run in 2012. What do you do when someone you may agree with on key issues makes your skin crawl?

How could such damaged goods occur in the wake of Republicans launching their strategic rebranding? Before the GOP collapsed into an incestuous echo chamber, there was a conservative intellectual tradition centered on the ancient concept of “Ethos”. This dates to the dawn of Western Civilization and concerns right and wrong choices. Ethics is about choice. Mark Sanford and the current Republican Party is a sad collection of wrong choices.

Some Republican pundits are going through Olympic style gymnastics to justify their support of Sanford. Conservative Talk Radio and Fox News are proclaiming that Sanford’s zipper problem is very different from President Bill Clinton’s zipper problem. They are asserting that one warrants eternal ostracism while the other merits forgiveness. Ironically, in December 1998, Rep. Sanford supported the resignation of adulterous Speaker-wannabe Rep. Bob Livingston, stating, "The bottom line is that he lied under a different oath - the oath to his wife."

Sanford and Clinton are just two in a long line of politicians who are motivated by something other than their heart and mind. The list is wonderfully bi-partisan. Here is the parade of shame from just the last two years: Chris Lee (R-NY), Eric Massa (D-NY), Mark Souder (R-IN), Anthony Weiner (D-NY), and David Wu (D-OR). Mercenary cable news use adultery as a ratings boon during the scandal and then profit on the residuals. Fox hired Sanford as a paid commentator, while CNN and Current TV hired disgraced Governor Elliott Spitzer as a host. This is the antithesis of ethical public behavior. Rome's pre-eminent political thinker, Cicero, defined this as “A good man speaking well”. Cashing-in on the scandal parade is neither.

Partisan acolytes for both sides have had to respond to these sex scandals by biting their tongues and finding ways to overcome sordid details and photos. It would be refreshing to hear just one of them simply say, “Okay, he’s an immoral a##hole, but we need his vote”.

The changing world of mass social media and “Oprah-style” confessionals has altered our politics for the worse. Thankfully, there is still such a thing as indignation, founded on essentially conservative ethical principles.

We have a test case for ethics in this Special Congressional election, which may be overshadowed by the basics of power politics. Republicans want to hold onto every Congressional seat, and deprive Democrats of anything that builds momentum for the November 2014 showdown. However, losing this special election may help Republicans achieve their long term objective to reinvent and reposition themselves for 2014 and 2016. Unfortunately, a Sanford victory sets-up the embarrassing tableau of Speaker Boehner swearing him in while former mistress, Maria Belen Chapur, holds the bible. Sanford would then go on to upstage Floor debates, committee meetings, fundraisers, and rallies.

Republicans clearly are wrestling with a major dilemma - whether the short term hunger for power trumps long term reasoning. Speaker Boehner endorsed Sanford, while the National Republican Congressional Committee has decided not to spend any more money on Sanford’s behalf ahead of the May 7 special election.

These observations come from the different perspectives of the two authors. We both agree that Sanford’s re-insertion into politics offends us both. It is a dilution of serious, ethical, political debate.

Scot Faulkner was Personnel Director for Reagan-Bush and the Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives. Jonathan Riehl, J.D., Ph.D., is a communications consultant for political campaigns and national nonprofit organizations and former speechwriter for Luntz Research, and instructor in Communications Studies.

Why Not Crowd Source Federal Budget Policy?

Published in The Washington Examiner

http://washingtonexaminer.com/op-ed-why-not-crowd-source-federal-budget-policy/article/2526579

European and American politicians are in a quandary -- how can they cut spending while avoiding public outrage?

Austerity riots and strikes have become commonplace throughout Europe. In America, the arbitrarily heavy-handed spending cuts, known as the sequester, have reduced voter support for Congress to record lows.

Maybe it is time for governments to copy the private sector. For years, corporations have asked their customers what they want. Business websites and social media are filled with requests for customers to develop new flavors, new products and their own ads.

This digital customer empowerment is called "crowd-sourcing." Imagine if governments asked their voters what programs to cut and by how much?

Direct voter input into spending has existed since the voluntary check-off for funding America's presidential elections was added to income tax returns in the 1970s. What if this check-off procedure expanded into all discretionary spending?

In America, April 15 is Tax Day. Imagine if Tax Day also became Budget Day? The Internal Revenue Service would provide everyone with a budget form that listed all discretionary federal programs.

Each taxpayer would be given a hypothetical $100,000 to allocate for these programs. A pro-forma budget showing how the $100,000 was allocated for the prior fiscal year would provide both a template for taxpayer input and a major learning experience. Imagine if every taxpayer saw how the federal government really spent their money?

The budget forms would be submitted with their tax returns. In essence, there would be a nationwide vote on spending every April 15. Every taxpayer's choices would be totaled, and the percentages of the choices for each program would be applied to the actual federal budget moving through the Congress.

These spending priorities could be immediately binding or be advisory for the first few years. Either way, the Budget Day results would be a major news event. Even advisory choices would be revolutionary if the people's "crowd-sourced" decisions contradict the allocations proposed by Washington's power elite.

As the kinks are worked out, and people became savvier about how to allocate their $100,000, even the advisory referendum could evolve into mandating the spending priorities.

For example, require a two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress to provide more or less funds than were allocated by the Budget Day results. National disaster assistance and declared wars could be exempted.

The April 15 Budget Day spending vote would become as important as Election Day. Tax preparation companies would develop "neutral" forms for people wanting to keep the same mix of spending each year.

Liberal and conservative interest groups would develop their own budgets for people to use. These would have the same impact as sample ballots. Taxpayers would be free to use them or do their own versions.

A similar process could be launched in European countries. A "budget day" would be created, and voter check-offs would be submitted.

Taxpayer budget choices will have immediate and fundamental impacts. In America, instead of spending their time swaying politicians, the special interests and federal agencies would have to persuade the 132 million people who file tax returns. Similar ripple effects would be felt in Europe as each nation implemented its own "crowd-sourced" budget processes.

Budget Day would open the door to building budgets that have widespread support -- because they would be democratically created. This process would also educate the electorate on the kinds of trade-offs and limitations being faced by politicians, opening eyes and minds to a common understanding and commitment to fiscal sanity.

Scot Faulkner is a former chief administrative officer for the U.S. House of Representatives. His blog is citizenoversight.blogspot.com.

Republicans' Uncivil War

This was published in Politico

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/republicans-uncivil-war-89696.html

By Scot Faulkner & Jonathan Riehl

The Republican Party is at war with itself and it is losing. For every successful Republican governor, there are Republican state legislators who embrace personally oppressive and interventionist initiatives. For every reasonable Republican member of Congress there are more who embarrass. Every compelling soundbite from Republican candidates and pundits are overwhelmed by those that repel.

It wasn’t always this way. Republicans used to be known for ending wars not starting them. Eisenhower negotiated the end of the Korea War, Nixon ended the Vietnam War, and Reagan ended the Cold War. Republicans used to be known for competent management. Truman turned to Herbert Hoover to bring order to the chaos of the New Deal. Reagan established the Grace Commission to focus on government waste and reform, while launching the Baldrige Award to provide stellar examples of leadership, organizational effectiveness, and customer service to make America more competitive. In 1995, Republicans in Congress cleaned-up the scandal-ridden mess left by decades of institutionalized corruption.

Republicans were also once known for their emphasis on science, empiricism, and environmental responsibility. Teddy Roosevelt established parks and a national ethic for conservation. Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency. Reagan led the way for private-public partnerships for historic preservation, notably the restoration of the Statue of Liberty. Eisenhower created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and started planning the moon missions. Man landed on the Moon under Nixon and dominated space with shuttles under Reagan.

Americans rewarded these policies and actions. The Reagan Revolution dominated America in the 1980s with three consecutive landslides of 489, 525, and 426 electoral votes. There was talk of the Democrats’ demise. Then something went wrong for Republicans. Terribly wrong.

Politics is about prevailing. To prevail you have to garner enough support to overcome opposition and apathy. This requires actions and rhetoric that are reasonable and inspirational. Republicans have become terrible at both. Rather than listening to the American people, they are listening to their failed paid consultants and media echo chamber.

In the late 1980’s conservatives were pioneers in new media. The end of the “Fairness Doctrine” in 1987 opened the door for radio and TV stations offering political points of view. Rush Limbaugh’s show premiered in 1988 and ushered in “conservative talk radio.” The Fox News Channel launched in 1996. MSNBC shifted to the left as a counter. On the other hand, William F. Buckley’s “Firing Line” ended its 33-year reign in 1999. This shift created larger-than-life personalities that were more interested in self-promotion via hyperbole over rational discourse.

This tilt was a mixed blessing. “Firing Line” attracted approximately 32,000 viewers, but now Fox News dominates audience ratings, besting its nearest competition by 4-1 in viewers, while its personality driven shows blow-out their competitors by as much as 6-1. The conservative movement’s annual convocation, the Conservative Political Action Conference, went from a microscopic 200 attendees in the 1970’s to a major political event with over 10,000 participants being covered by all major news outlets.

While Buckley conservatives and Reagan Republicans attracted smaller real-time audiences, their ideas and discourse appealed to an ever-expanding universe across the political spectrum. On the other hand, the three million who regularly watch Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity and the upwards of 15 million who listen to Limbaugh each week, are content with their solid, but stagnant universe. Republican office holders and candidates have tailored their messages and thinking to this reality, as Bill Maher says, it’s “life in the bubble.” Unfortunately, 15 million fanatical fans are dwarfed by the 130 million people who voted in 2012. Yet Republicans seem ambivalent to expanding their domain.

Another phenomenon fed this myopic Republican universe. Pro-government Democrats entered the Republican Party in the late 1970s. NeoCons were Hubert Humphrey/Scoop Jackson Cold War Democrats who fled the dovish accommodation policies of George McGovern and Jimmy Carter to rally to Reagan’s victory over rather than coexistence with anti-communism. Around this same time the TheoCons arrived. These were a mix of pro-life Democrats and Southern Democrat evangelical Christians who felt betrayed by Carter. They helped Carter get elected in 1976, only to have him promote government policies that felt like a war against religion and family values.

At first the Republican Party welcomed these refugees. The NeoCons were Cold War soul-mates, while the TheoCons aligned with the libertarians in fighting intrusive left-wing policies and regulations. However, when Reagan left office, these two groups were no longer content to be junior members of a diverse coalition. These pro-government and pro-interventionist groups saw a weak and malleable leader in George H.W. Bush. The death of powerful Republican National Committee Chairman Lee Atwater left a power vacuum within the party. The Neos and Theos marched in and took over.

A new self-perpetuating political echo chamber was in place. The naturally exclusionary Neo and Theo factions drove out or silenced the broad Reagan coalition. They espoused big government ideas, a legacy of their Democratic Party roots, which alienated core Republican constituencies and trumpeted bible-based science and morality that drove off independents and blue collar Democrats.

Fox News and conservative talk radio were more than willing to be forums and advocates for this ascendant coalition. George W. Bush, and his political Svengali, Karl Rove, embraced the Neos and Theos to cobble together a narrow victory in 2000. In exchange, Bush was willing to fight their wars and move their policies, cheered on by the ersatz conservative echo chamber. The fact that these actions contradicted decades of Republican and conservative thought seemed irrelevant to all involved.

Bush 43 added his own straw to the political camel’s back by his willingness to allow cronyism to trump competence. By promoting amateurs to bungle the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq and allowing the once noble Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, to make an epic mess of Hurricane Katrina relief, Bush eviscerated the long-standing Republican reputation for management competency. The Republican echo chamber remained silent to this dismal record, violating another of their core principles – holding power accountable. A Republican world view, devoid of facts and critical thinking was taking hold. Like Thelma and Louise, Republican politicians and pundits alike grasped hands and floored the gas peddle into the abyss.

Except for some stellar governors, the Republican movement has been in free fall since late 2005. Like a cancer patient on remission, the tea party-fueled 2010 election blowout offered a fleeting and aberrant reversal of fortune. It remains to be seen if Republicans can heal themselves or whether the Democrats will over-reach clearing the way for a GOP comeback by default. Either way, America’s political landscape is denuded when rational thought and competence are edged out of the picture.

Scot Faulkner was Personnel Director for the Reagan-Bush campaign in 1980 and the Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives. Jonathan Riehl, J.D., Ph.D., is a communications consultant for political campaigns and national nonprofit organizations and a former speechwriter for Luntz Research, and an instructor in Communications Studies.