I have a poll question for our readers: "What is more important - Partisanship or Leadership?" For example, would you rather have a loyal Republican or Democrat in office, whose decisions are guided by the Party, or a leader whose decisions are guided by what works best for the State of Virginia? Ok, think about your answer before reading on
Alright, have you answered the question? Good. Now you are ready for my opinion.
Partisanship sucks. It doesn't work, because it limits and cuts off any contrary knowledge that might provide a better option for a solving a specific problem. Political parties are bound by so many forces pulling them in different directions, they often find themselves torn between being accountable to the People and the Party.
I recently read on a conservative blog that Politics 101 teaches us that ANY Republican is better than ANY Democrat.* How can that be? If that was true, it would mean that even the worst Republicans was better than even the best Democrat (and vice versa). Does that mean that Tom DeLay is better than Bill Clinton? Are we saying that DeLay would be better suited to lead America through a complex and dangerous world than the President who led us for 8 years?
With all the talk about "Red States", people forget that several of our "Reddest" States have elected Democrats as their leaders. Today, Democrats hold the Governors' mansions in Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Several of our "Blue States" have Republican governors, including California, Massachusetts, and New York.
Thankfully, we are still not completely partisan in our statewide races, and we shouldn't have to be. Instead we can -- and need to -- choose based on leadership, and we need to allow candidates room to be themselves. Unfortunately, Jerry Kilgore seems to reside firmly in Partisan Land. Tim Kaine definitely does not. But Jerry Kilgore wants and needs everyone to believe that Tim Kaine is a tax-hiking, big government Democrat, because the only way Kilgore can win is by asserting his partisanship.
If Jerry Kilgore actually thought partisanship were a bad thing, then I might actually agree with his strategy. But it seems to me that Kilgore is running to further the Republican Party's agenda far more than he is running to further Virginia's. Also, by Kilgore's logic, if you disagree with him than you are an angry liberal, and barely even deserve to be represented. In contrast, Tim Kaine cares most about what works best for all the citizens of Virginia, not just Democrats. That's because Tim Kaine is not a blind party loyalist like Jerry Kilgore. Instead, if Tim Kaine is elected, he will do the best he can to support Virginia citizens whether they are Democrats, Republicans, or whatever. Because Tim Kaine knows that Virginia works best when the needs of all its people are considered.
In closing, I would like to ask people to respond to this article by answering my poll question. Please say whether you are a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green, etc, etc.. Also, please let us know whether you agree with the mantra of Politics 101, that it is more important to be a party loyalist, or whether you agree with Tim Kaine (and I) that leadership is the most important quality for success in public office. I eagerly await your reply.
*The logic of Politics 101 could also be turned around to mean that ANY Democrat is better than ANY Republican. The general point is that partisanship is more important than leadership.
Supporters of Jim Moran make that very claim. In fact, you will be kicked off of any 8th District Democratic Committee if you oppose a Democratic nominee in the general election.
Scott Surovell attempted to punish Andy Rosenberg for allegedly calling on people during the 2004 primary not to support Jim Moran in the general election.
Surovell was wrong, because one is not required to support potential nominees, only nominees. Up until the time that Moran became the Democratic nominee in June of 2004 every Democrat had an absolute right to saw whatever one pleased about him, even under the existing 8th District rules.
We can't just be Democrats or Republicans and hope to get anything done. We have to be Americans above our parties.
Do you mean that you supported him in the primary, or only in the general?
I do not intend to change your mind, but I would be interested in knowing why you supported him in the primary, if indeed you did?
It seems to me that the Moran machine is antithetical to the purpose of Raising Kaine. Indeed, Kaine called for a congressional investigation of Jim Moran's ethical lapses.
Kaine cancelled an appearance at one of Moran's Town Hall meetings. Why?
I understand sellouts supporting Moran in the 2004 primary, but why did you, if you did?
Leadership is necessary, I'd like to see more of it from my party. Leadership in the wrong direction has proven to be inestimably expensive.
Will we ever recover?
I meant to say:
I think the closest the GOP has to this kind of thinking may be McCain, who was one of my favorite polticians, until he came out in support of teaching creationism in school.
I think it's psychological. I can't bear to even think of the damage that teaching creationism as science will do to the future of our nation. Anyway, in my eyes, ignorance doesn't translate to leadership and that pretty much wipes out a pretty broad section of the Moralists who now control the GOP.
What is the difference between neo-conservatives and Republicans?
Is President Bush a neo-conservative, a Republican or both? What about Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice et al?
I am concerned because in the summer of 2004 I heard Jim Moran say in a candidates debate at a Fairfax County synagogue (the one that was sponsored by B'nai B'rith) that it could be that when he spoke of the Jewish community in Reston in 2003 that he, Moran, was actually thinking about the Neo-Conservatives.
Why would the Neo-Conservatives, whoever they are, make Jim Moran think of the Jewish community?
And, again, what is the difference between a neo-conservative, a non-neo conservative, and a Republican? Are they different?
What is your response to Jim Moran's claim that when he spoke of the Jewish community ("if it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq we would not be doing this") he was actually thinking about Jews?
Is Moran's self-defense a legitimate one? When Moran speaks of "neo-conservatives" does Moran mean something different than most other people do?
Does the term have ethnic connotations? (I don't think so, for most people.)
If it has no ethnic connotations for Jim Moran, then why does thinking about the neo-conservatives cause Moran to speak about "the Jewish community."?
1. Socially: Theocracy is the end goal. If you have sex, you're bad and you should be stoned to death. I'm really only exaggerating a little bit.
2. Economically: While arguing for a "free" market, creating huge corporate socialist state giveaways and re-distributing wealth to the very very welthy from the rest of us.
3. Politically: a beligerant nationalism built around such principles as "projecting american power" and "premptive non-aggression". Basically, "might makes right" and screw you if you don't like it. [pleased to meet you Mr. (ahem Ambassador) Bolton]
Now, these principles aren't the core principles of the GOP, neither are they the core principles of conservatism.
Thing is, these extremists now run the GOP, and Democrats need to save true conservatives and true republicans from the madmen at the helm before the whole ship hits the rocks and takes us down.
Moderate republicans want tax breaks, but still favor some economic security, public education, and believe in investing in the future. Real conservatives believe in fiscal sanity, smart government, and social responsibility.
Unfortunately the GOP and the nation have been hijacked by these powerful, persuasive, and well funded radicals and if we don't get our act together and take it all back, we're going back to the middle ages.
paleo-cons
As for all that jewish stuff, I think Moran had to recant that and it was pretty ugly. I don't have the background on it.
Moran's statement that "if it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq we would not be doing this" was an anti-Semitic statement uttered by a probably non-anti-Semitic person. Here is why.
The audience at St. Anne's church was overwhelmingly (or so Dina Sortland thought) non-Jewish, and it was overwhelmingly anti-Iraq-War.
When you tell them that if not for the Jews we would not have this war, that is associating Jews as a group with something that the non-Jewish audience views as unfavorable.
If you spoke to a child who disliked carrots and you told him "Jews make children eat carrots" that would also be an anti-Semitic statement. Whether some Jewish parents in fact make their children eat carrots would be irrelevant. It may even be that Jewish parents are disproportionately more likely than others to make their children eat carrots.
The truth or falsity of the statement is irrelevant.
The problem is that Moran's statement created an association between being Jewish and something that the audience at St. Anne's was extremely antagonistic to, namely, the Iraq War.
The problem is Moran's rhetoric. If you want to read Moran's over the top objections to the creation of Israel 60 years ago, check out this transcript of Moran's speech to the American Muslim Council in 2001.
http://www.goodbyejim.com/1077490808/index_html
In 2002 the AMC had an online video of Moran giving this speech, and I watched it. This speech more than any other event turned me against Moran. I had voted for Moran just two years earlier.
Please be aware that much of what Moran states is unfactual, and appears to be invented on the spur of the moment. In particular, the Balfour Declaration in 1917 did not partition Palestine (a U.N. resolution did in 1947.)
Hence when Moran tries to remember how the Balfour Declaration partitioned Palestine, he can't. You can see Moran pause and then charge ahead, saying that he believes that the Balfour declaration gave about 65 percent of the land to two percent of the population.
The U.N. partition resolution assigned 51 percent of Palestine to a Jewish state. Jews at the time were about one third of the population.
If there were ever a Republican who could see past corporate interests and fight for a purple nation, I'd be there.
I think the closest the GOP has to this kind of thinking may be McCain, who was one of my favorite polticians, until he came out in support of teaching evolution in school.
aye carumba!
The days of Lincoln are long past for the GOP, divide and conquer serves so well.
This will be an incindiary analogy. We don't remember this very well, but in October 1983 a suicide bomber crashed a huge truck bomb into the marine barracks in Lebanon and killed 241 servicemen. It was the largest loss of military lives in a day up to that point since WWII. While Reagan and Bush I decried the attack, promised to fight on, and talked tough, by February 1984, the International Peacekeepers were out of Lebanon.
My point here is that in the Arab world, that moment is seen as a hugely successful terrorist attack. It's seen as successfully forcing the US out of Lebanon.
We don't like to think about it, but among those few in the Middle East who wish the US ill, this is like christmas, new years, and july 4 all rolled up into one.
Basically, it's held up as the difinitive proof that terrorism works. If Reagan and Bush hadn't let them get away with it, who knows what the state of terrorism would be today.
That's just an analogy. What's it analagous to? It's analagous to the Rove-Howell "divide and conquer" strategy. We've seen divisive politics win and win and win, just like the terrorists won in Lebanon.
If we want to disprove the validity of "divide and conquer" poltics we need to fight the better battle and we need to win.
I think that Vision and Leadership can trump all this wedge issue, culture war, smear campaign muck that we see in politics, but not if we don't actually stand up with Vision and Leadership.
Neither terrorism nor "Wedge" poltics would be practiced if they hadn't proved to be successful. Only once they are too costly to be employed, and truly seen as losing pursuits will Vision and Leadership prevail.
Put it this way. Kaine was going to appear at a Jim Moran Town Hall meeting. Suddenly Tim cancelled. Why?
Probably it dawned on someone in the Kaine campaign that Moran ran 17,539 votes behind John Kerry. Those 17,539 people do not like Jim Moran. If Moran appears with Kaine, Moran hurts Kaine.
Ditto for the forty percent of delegates to the Virginia AFL-CIO convention in Tysons who walked out on Moran this month.
The incumbent in the 8th is at best useless in attracting support for Democratic statewide candidates. And as long as Moran is that incumbent the Tim Kaines and the Cree Deeds and the Leslie Byrnes will pay a price for it.
So if you wish to vote for Jim Moran in 2006 that is your right, but you should realize that, like Dems who voted for Gary Condit and Jim Traficant, you are hurting the Democratic Party.
You will be hurting future Tim Kaines.
But, I also think here's a great opportunity to put populist passionate progressivism into practice:
Gimme a Jim Moran who doesn't say stupid stuff, and "gets it" when it comes to labor and I'll vote for him every day. I'll work for him, I'll get a hundred people to work for him. We'll infiltrate the nomination process, we'll push, we'll prod, we'll energize the district. Here's a great chance for some fantastic change.
So... who's the best guy in the district?
Who's the best leader? Who's our Wes Clark? Who's our Barack Obama? Who's our true, blue progressive champion?
Show me the candidate, and I'll show you a model for the transformation of the nation.
anybody? anyone?