MASON CONSERVATIVE

How Strong Was Jamie Radtke's Tea Party?

I almost feel bad bringing some of this stuff up, but its our duty to properly vet these candidates so we don't get burned again.  For Jamie Radtke, her major achievement in organzing politics was the 3,000 people-attended Richmond Tea Party Patriots Convnetion, that seems to have flexed some muscle.

Right?

Or did it?

Unlike most of the other battleground states, Virginia had no statewide races and instead were thrilled with what turned out to be four highly contested congressional races where of the four Democrat incumbents, Republicans won three.

So I'm sure the tea party can take credit for that.  Sadly, they really can't. Part of it is that Virginia's state party machinery has historically been very conservative.  Patrick McSweeney, Randy Forbes, John Hager, Ed Gillespie, Jeff Frederick - these are all very conservative politicians who served as state party chairmen.  So the dynamic is different here, its not like the RVP was swimming with moderates.  The "establisment" in Virginia does not equate to squishy moderate.

Secondly, the party has been pretty unified lately especially coming off the incredibly one-sided victories by Bob McDonnell, Bill Bolling, and Ken Cuccinelli (not to mention our HoD candidats) so the party was doing well and had the confidence of a lot of Republicans.  There wasn't a lot of angst pointing inward by the dawn of 2010.

But lets look at the politics inside these districts shall we?  First, in the 2nd, a huge primary errupted headed by Scott Rigell, who is close to Gov. McDonnell who is from the 2nd.  Various candidates claimed Tea Party support - Ben Loyola and Scott Taylor made major pushes in that direction.  Rigell was talked into the race by McDonnell and many establishmnet Republicans and apparently has been active in local politics for awhile.  In the end, Rigell won even as candidate after candidate talked the Tea Party game.

In the 5th, one would expect it to be a hotbed for tea party activism given the deep conservative strain in this, the district of Virgil Goode.  Like in the 2nd, candidate after candidate from Jim McKelvey to Feda Morton to Michael McPadden bellowing Tea Party conservatism.  Who won?  "Moderate" Robert Hurt, a "career politician" who has actually voted for the Warner Tax Hikes when he was a delegate.

Now in the 11th, Keith Fimian did ride a tea party-fueled wave to defeat Pat Herrity in the GOP primary, but this was a local dynamic at play here and I'm not sure I ever heard of Jamie Radtke during the campaign and I was as big a Fimian guy as there was. 

In the 9th, Morgan Griffith runs the House of Delegates for the Speaker, you can't be more "establishment" than that.

So what's the point of all this?

Lets be careful who is and isn't "tea party," whatever that definition is.  As Brian and LI have already pointed out, Jamie Radtke has deep roots in the professonal conservative world with stints working for Jesse Helms, George Allen, and various conservative PACs and organization.  She's not exactly the mother walking out of her home to take a stand that many of these Tea Party activists have.

That's not to say that Ms. Radtke isn't genuine in her beliefs and would make a fabulous US senator, that jury is still out.  But the successful, high-profile US Senate candidates that ran with the  Tea Party didn't just spout mantra and slogans, they formed individual theories of government.  They didn't dumb it down, they got as complicated as possible.  Listen to guys like Mike Lee and Rand Paul talk, they are genuine and orginial.  Listen to new governors like Rick Scott and Nikki Haley, there is a boldness that goes beyond plattitudes and recyled jargon.

The question, which is she.  Is she a candidate that just rallies agianst big government and the evils of Obama (think O'Donnell, Angle, and even Palin) or someone who puts forth a true vision of the role of government vis-a-vie the Constitution and how it applies to us today (think Lee, Rubio, Paul, and even Ron Paul).  People outside this Tea Party movement get it wrong so much because they don't understand that the group is vaporous, its there but you can't jut grab it and shape or mold it.  Nobody can really claim to lead it in any sort of meaningful way.  And for what she did lead in Virignia, as noted above, I'm not sure Ms. Radtke can claim to have any sort of electoral success. 

Radtke's Full Letter

This looks much better than the part sliced out by the Wall Street Journal.  Normally my aetenna is up for this kind of stuff but since it was the WSJ, I figured maybe they wouldn't be so deceptive.  Her candidacy is interesting, and I'm inclined to think its a positive.  Some are looking for people with "experience" and more of a resume, but the "experienced" politicians are the ones that got us into this mess we are in now to begin with so her not holding previous office isn't something I have a problem with.  Its clear that she won't deter Bob Marshall from running, but Corey Stewart sadly sounded way too supportive in the WSJ article.  Stewart is probably my top choice right now in the anyone-but-Allen camp.  I don't know, I'll have to see how she handles things and I want to be able to see her myself in some forum before I make my mind up.  Still, the more the merrier and I think she brings in the opinions of a lot of people who might otherwise be left out.

Her full statement is below

Is Radtke Ready For Primetime?

Its clear she will run on the Tea Party dogma, but is she ready?  Riley blows her quote in the WSJ apart, where she references Republicans cutting taxes that added to the debt.  Riley rightly points out that these were not tax cuts, but simply sustaining the current tax rate and keeping them from going up.  The reason for adding to the national debt falls squarely on the Democratic leadership for not taking a vote on this issue before issuing a budget.  The CBO scores the budget based on law, and the law said that taxes would go up so Congressional Democrats wrote those tax increases into the budget, instead of voting up or down on the Bush tax cuts before writing the budget.  The reason it hut the national debt isn't because taxes were cut, but rather because Democrats assumed taxes would be raised in the new year; not taking into account how the election would turn out.  From what I know of Ms. Radtke, she has experience in Congress as a staffer to Jesse Helms, so one might think she would get that little fact straight.  What Congress did was not raise taxes, but maintain levels.  The debt went up because Democrats wrote those increses into the budget.

Its of course very early, but one has to wonder given this strange comment on taxes, is Ms. Radtke ready? 

Jamie Radtke Is Running For US Senate

From the Wall Street Journal:

In an interview, Ms. Radtke said she decided to run after watching Congress pass legislation during this month’s lame duck session, including a package of tax cuts, that added to the national debt.

“It has become clear that many in Congress still don’t get it,” she said. “The tax bill did nothing to cut the huge debt burden on all of us.”

Hmmmmm . . . its going to be very interesting.

Barbara Comstock: The Heir Apparent In VA-10?

The national party certainly seems something with her, as Citizens United is getting into fundraising for the only Republican elected inside the beltway.  I've heard it whispered before, but should Frank Wolf decide to retire, its pretty clear that Barbara Comstock is being groomed to succeed him.  She just has to get reelected and with outside groups like Citizens getting behind her, its clear she is a major priority among both the party and the activists. 

Will Haley Barbour Be Made To Pay For The Sins Of The South?

Whenever we get into questions of race and southern politicians, its always tricky.  To say their is a hyper-sensitivity when white, southern, Republican politicans speak up is an understatement.  Just as Trent Lott what happens when you joke around about race.

The problem is that isn't not to be joked around about.  But I see the vampires sinking their teeth into Haley Barbour this week, where essentially he was defending his hometown of Yazoo City, and I wonder if he will be made to carry the entire southern past on his shoulders should he run for president?  We have had only three true southern presidents since the Civil War - Woodrow Wilson, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter (Texas is its own world).  All three were able to avoid this burden because they were liberals.

Examing Haley Barbour's life is fair game if he runs for president, but making and holding him responsible for the tortured past of his state is not.  He deserves to be criticized for saying that the Citizens Councils where somehow respectable.  While he was correct that they banned the KKK, the point of the CCs was to take the Klan's ultimate goal and make it modern, appealing, and reasonable.  In many ways, that is even more nefarious. 

But the broader issue that I see is that Gov. Barbour will not be judged by his career, where he proved he was perhaps the best governor in the country over the last decade, but by the terrible sins of all of us.  And that simply isn't fair to him, to others who deserve more blame.  Barbour proved what kind of a person he was when 1/3 of his state, black and white, was wiped out by Hurricane Katrina.  I would hope that when Gov. Barbour does decide to run for president, that he will give a speech on race.  It would be a fitting bookend to President Obama.  I think Barbour has proven what a positive the Civil Rights movement wants for the entire South. 

I hope America is ready to move past this.  For liberals, it seems they cannot because they are the ones that fan racial flames, they are the ones preventing America from moving past this.  I wonder if a reporter would be brave enough to ask President Obama if he thinks Governor Barbour is a racist.

Richard Burr Is Right

NRO profiles North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr and his vote in favor or repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." 

I don't like to be that blogger that feels the need to get my two cents into every national issue here, thinking people just can't wait to read what Chris thinks about this or that.  Other bloggers can do that, and frankly I don't have the time or the ego to think everyone cares what I think about everything.

So I stayed away from DADT, mostly because its an issue that doesn't bother me much.  But I do think that the time has come to get rid of this policy.  If someone wants to volunteer, go through the excrutiating process of getting through basic, and perhaps even die for our flag - I'm not going to stand in their way just because they are attracted to men rather than women.  I also think its pretty ridiculous to think that just because your gay, you somehow can't control your sexual impulses is frankly kind of insulting.  And from what my brother has told me about the army, straight soldiers need to look in the mirror when it comes to fraternization.

I do understand those who are against this, but it comes down to volunteering to serve the country.  I think it might be a generation thing, and I also think there is no real way to guage how the military troops look at this, because their job is to obey the president, the secretary of defense, and their superiors. 

I don't know, it might just be me.  I've known some gay people and really its just not a big deal to me. 

Joe Manchin, Your State Needs A US Senator

Apparently the view under his desk is better than that of the floor of the US Senate because he beat a path out of town to avoid voting on the DREAM Act and the DADT repeal.  Nice.

Showtime!

I know you all never took to the MMA posts I used to do and I don't have the time to lovingly craft them anymore, but watching the WEC's last show on Versus last night, THIS happened in the lightweight main event between champ Ben Henderson and Anthony "Showtime" Pettis.

 

I've literally never seen anything like that in MMA, and I've watched so much MMA Jess is jealous of the entire sport. Amazing stuff.

"No Labels" Is The Perfect Name

Forgive me for a bad retail comparison but retail is what I know.  So imagine your in a store and you come across a product, and it has no label.  Its just a box with nothing written on it, but you havne't bought it yet so you don't know what it is.  That best explains this new group called No Labels, an amorphous, valueless group that seeks to do . . . well, I'm not sure what.  I guess go halvsies between the parties and sort of take some from both?  I think?

I can't speak for the Democrats there, but I can tell you this rag-tag group fo Republicans like Mike Bloomberg (who left the party), Charlie Crist (who left the party), Mark McKinnon (who left the party), Bob Inglis (defeated in primary), Mike Castle (defeated in primary), and Tom Davis (retired before any of that happend to him) sound like a cavalcade of sore loserdom.  I mean, Charlie Crist?  Really?  Back in March he was trying to tell people he was a conservative! 

Anyways, good luck  for moving forward standing on no principle, straddling every fence, and being willing to settle for almost nothing in return for moving forward.  Whatever that means.