Teabagger: Next year, we storm the castle

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

What Did NY-23 Mean?

Submitted by Jon Henke on Wed, 11/04/2009

[Disclosure: I worked with the Doug Hoffman campaign. However, the views here are my own. I have not discussed this at all with the Hoffman campaign.]

The bottom line on NY-23:

* Doug Hoffman just won the Republican Primary. The general election is next year.

* There are two broken, corrupt, arrogant political parties we need to defeat. We beat the Republican establishment in 2009. We'll beat the Democratic Party in 2010.

* NY-23 is not really about Conservatives VS Moderates. It is about the Establishment VS the Movement.

What happened in NY-23:

For years, the conventional wisdom has been that blue state Republicans had to nominate a "not too hot, not too cold" candidate - what my friend Max Borders called a Keynesian political strategy of tweaking the policy variables until you get a candidate whose positions seem most appealing to the most people. Like Keynesian economic tinkering, it all works very well....until some fundamental shift reveals the underlying artificiality, and it all falls apart.

Political parties gain power by standing for something appealing. But when a party gains power, it loses definition. Rather than standing for something appealing and well-defined, they try to stand for anything appealing enough to win. But you can only tinker so much before you destroy the brand that people had elected, and then you become the minority again.

The minority is where Parties and movements go to be reborn. There, they have to figure out who they are, and what their mission is. You can't storm the castle until you're all facing the same direction and focused on the same goals. Sometimes - as in NY-23 - that involves telling the establishment "Thank you, but our mission is in another castle" (If I might borrow political wisdom from Super Mario Bros).

The establishment GOP - the NY GOP, the NRCC, the RNC and a few prominent Republicans - got behind another establishment GOP type in Dede Scozzafava. In any other recent year, she would have sailed through. Not in 2009.

The public - including moderates, libertarians and alienated Republicans - has grown much more nervous about Democratic governance. The Tea Party movement is just one manifestation of the sparks that are flying, but it goes far deeper than that, and the establishment GOP has been oblivious to, or dismissive of, these sparks. With Dede Scozzafava, the establishment Republican Party threw gasoline on top of the sparks and a brushfire erupted. The result was the quintessential "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" campaign of Doug Hoffman.

What NY-23 Is About

The story of NY-23 is not "conservatives beat moderates" or "conservative loses to Democrat".

The story of NY-23 is "the Right starts dismantling the Republican establishment." This is about how the Republican Party is defined and who defines it.

Right now, the movement wants the Republican Party to be defined by opposition to big government. Gradually, as new leaders arise, we will demand that the Republican Party be defined by its own solutions, as well, but rebuilding is an incremental process. We can hammer out the policy agenda and the boundaries of the coalition later.

For now, our job is to disrupt the establishment GOP. If we beat Democrats while we're at it, great. But the first priority is to fix the Drunk Party - the Living Dead establishment Republicans. They're history. They just don't know it yet.

NY-23 was the first shot in that war. It was a direct hit. Next year, we start storming the castle.

[MissStacey 1]

AJ- take a break from the current events and go play some MW.

[Ban Hammer 13,345]

AJ- take a break from the current events and go play some MW.

maybe i should send him some more booyahs.

[SuperDuper! 230]

AJ- take a break from the current events and go play some MW.

wow, so bossy!

[scandal 951]

Political parties gain power by standing for something appealing. But when a party gains power, it loses definition.

Actually, successful political dynasties get that way by building coalitions and reaching out. At least - in America they have always done so. It's about building bridges between different regions of the country, reaching out to business and labor, young and old, establishment and those trying to break it. Populist and successful leaders and parties have always gone for this formula. Whether Andrew Jackson or FDR Democrats, or Abraham Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan Republicans - the LAST thing you want to do is reduce your platform to a core set of believers. That's the Karl Rove approach to politics. Admittedly it won his party 8 years in the White House, but not particularly successful ones.

that involves telling the establishment "Thank you, but our mission is in another castle" (If I might borrow political wisdom from Super Mario Bros).

Ah, well. Political strategy as borrowed from video games. That explains a lot about this new "conservative" approach.

[Niels Bohr 72]

Edited November 5, 2009 by Niels Bohr

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Political parties gain power by standing for something appealing.

Well, close but no cigar. The important thing is that the political party stands for something that appeals to a broad audience. The tea baggers appeal to the right wing of the Republican party and not much more. Narrowing your appeal is not how any political party has ever gained power. It works the other way around - broaden your appeal. In order to do that, you need to be inclusive not dogmatic. Well, maybe they'll begin to understand that when their army to storm the castle comes up 535 men short.

[chri'stina 190]

For now, our job is to disrupt the establishment GOP. If we beat Democrats while we're at it, great. But the first priority is to fix the Drunk Party - the Living Dead establishment Republicans. They're history. They just don't know it yet.

NY-23 was the first shot in that war. It was a direct hit. Next year, we start storming the castle.

I think I am too tired to read this kind of article but I read it and wanted to comment. I forget half of what I was going to write.

If certain parts of the article are taken just in theory, it's not so off. The GOP needs some changes. What the changes are varies by opinions. There are some things I have learned over the past couple years from a friend who had worked for a state senator here who was a Republican. After that job my friend registered Independent. He still doesn't agree with the left but he saw that the politicians were almost all the same behind the scenes, they just put on a show for the public. Their real lives often contradict what they are supposed to stand for. We all already assume that, but you can hear first hand experiences too.

But when the article writer says, "Right now, the movement wants the Republican Party to be defined by opposition to big government." I'm guessing teabagger movement. Well if that was really the case, then it sounds good not bad. But it's not the case. They have added in other things that make them sound crazy to many.

Just wanting smaller government is not an evil desire. If they are fiscally conservative people, they are thinking about the long term financial situation of this country that already has a huge deficit that we just have to live with it seems. People seem like they don't want to talk about that HUGE problem in a real way(deficit). When they start saying Obama is trying to be a dictator and stuff, it goes over the line from one idea to another. Then you have those associated with the "movement" saying stuff about Obama's country of birth nonsense which makes them look a lot less credible. But I believe there are people who have gone to "tea parties" who just don't want the government spending and spending, because of what it could do in the future. (I said could, not would. Possibilities are there for bad and good and we can only hope for good but you can't be 100% sure, financially speaking.)

Ok I'm done.