GOP governors look ahead to 2012

I realize the "stimulus" discussion is being a bit drawn out. This article takes a prospective view of the GOP for the future and how their support/opposition could effect the candidacy in 2012.

The E-Campaign

In the 2008 Presidential election, both John McCain and Barack Obama appeared to be running very candidate-centered campaigns. The theme for the election, most notably from Obama was “Change,” but was also coined in John McCain’s “A Change We Can Believe In.” This alone required a step away from traditional strict party loyalty. McCain has constantly been ostracized his lack of party loyalty and Obama has been praised for his independence.

I think the candidates are very much influenced by their netroots. Obama ran a very successful netroots campaign.

“The websites are part of a strategy that Obama announced in an online video, in February 2007, even before he formally launched his presidential campaign. He asked his online audience to "use this website as a tool to organize your friends, your neighbors and your networks." (http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2008/03/obama_tools)

John McCain attempted the same strategy with sites like blogs4mccain.com but was not as successful.

I strongly believe that advancing technology is decreasing the pull of the political party in campaigns. Voters are seeing candidates more as individuals and less as a byproduct of a greater political regime. According to King (The Vulnerable American Politician, 1997), politicians are vulnerable four reasons: their short terms in office, running as individuals rather than as a party, having to continually raise large sums of money, and that they face being defeated in primary elections. The internet just adds to the threat. Incumbents may now show a lack in job security because their platforms and campaign specifics are put on a platter for the voter to see as well as the negative idea that blogs and articles may easily be biased and misleading, providing for a stronger defense on the candidate’s part. The internet also increases the fact that the candidates have to run as individuals and their party backbone is weakening.

“Every statement made by a politician is videotaped, scrutinized and broadcasted to anyone with internet access. Politicians will be accountable for every lie, double-talk and incriminating phrase they utter.” (http://www.helium.com/items/295535-the-internets-effect-on-campaigning-and-elections)

Burris: I tried to raise money for Blagojevich

This article seemed semi-appropriate for this weeks topics. It is about the scandals of raising money in politics and nominations. It appears that both parties are taking a stand against this sort of behavior and even a call to the ethics committee might be at hand.

Boring Title About Finance Reform and Nominations

Depending on who you ask, there can be negative effects of these political reforms and new rules involving the primaries. The blanket primary, for example, is “anathema to anyone who believes parties stand for something and they should be held accountable for the performance of the government” (Hetherington and Keefe pg .72). This system is the most open of primaries and creates split-ticketing, which shows a weakness in the party system because it is candidate-centered and gives responsibility to the individual. The Open Primary also has negative effects. Voters are allowed to vote outside their party and can potentially screw the other party before moving on to the main election. “Party Leaders suffer from a special anxiety in open primary states: the possibility that voters of the competing party will raid their primary, hoping to nominate a week candidate who would be easy to defeat in the general election” (Hetherington and Keefe pg. 70). This means that in the past election a Republican could/would have voted for Hillary Clinton as the choice for the Democratic Nomination because she would be easier to defeat by the Republican candidate. Our reading also tells us that Wisconsin 8 to 11 percent are partisan crossovers in the primaries.

It is next to impossible for a candidate to win office without a Party’s nomination and that nomination means money. There are constant attempts at regulating the means for attaining funds for campaigning. The court however, in Buckley v. Valeo, decided that it was unconstitutional to limit the independent spending of candidates or individuals because Political money is political speech (Hetherington and Keefe pg. 119). The wealthiest people will always win out in the candidate process because there will always be loopholes in political spending, especially when people are willing to spend their own money. The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 “would, Democrats hoped, strike at the heart of Republican political power—while leaving untouched their own sources of influence, such as union-organized volunteers. The law tightly limited both political contributions and any expenditure that might “influence” an election.”( http://www.city-journal.org/html/ws2007-07-01bs.html) FECA attempted to limit the cost of elections, lower the influence of wealthy contributors on elections and has failed to an extent on both of those. There is no way to rid the election process of all factions. It seems like a nice idea that any intelligent person have a fair shot at becoming a president, but there has to be an elimination process, and money tends to be the easiest way to do this. The most important goal of these reforms should be to find a way to keep politicians from being heavily influenced by their financial contributors.

Lucky Lieberman

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/18/AR2008111803153.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns

Senator Joe Lieberman was facing the risk of being outlawed from the Democratic Party for his support of Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain. Turns out the majority of the fellow democratic senators voted to let him keep his position by a landslide.

Decentralization

I believe Decentralization is an effective and important part of our political system.

According to Hetherington and Keefe page 32, it is much easier for candidates running on a subnational level to assimilate with the state’s ideologies. I think this alludes to the difficulties political parties may have on the national level. Because Decentralization has the power being held higher at state and local levels, it becomes more difficult to have a unified ideology among parties and thus discipline is lacking. I do however think this lack of discipline can be a good thing in terms of our Nation’s heterogeneity.

Decentralization forces candidates and political parties to cater at a more local level, and those smaller levels are made up of different people, ethnicities, ideologies etc, steering clear of an overall generalization. This in turn works in favor of the local representatives. Without this dispersing of power, subnational government leaders would have little weight in decision-making and would hold no value. This would create a lack of efficacy among voters, knowing that one national leader could not possibly take care of their needs, voting a partisanship is pointless.

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/03/mccain_plans_decentralized_cam.php . This article describes McCain’s plan of Decentralized campaigning. This may have been effective had the content of his campaigning been different.

http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/546# . This article is an example of Obama’s use of Decentralization in his political campaign and its effectiveness. He created a hierarchal system of campaigning allowing different smaller teams to take charge of different districts. This sacrifice of centralized control may have played a large role in the election outcome, which clearly was a victory on his end.

I think as of right now the Republican Party is looking for someone to take control. Right now the party is can only focus on local reps. They had a pretty serious defeat and most of the nation is rallying in hope behind the new president, who is in clear control of the Democratic Party. (Yes, this is coming from a conservative-libertarian—myself).If things move forward in a successful manner, I think party strength should be less important. I am sure the Republicans are waiting for Obama to fail so they can rally behind a new leader and take their attempt at a lead; and if he does fail, by all means go for it.

States to Congress: Stop squabbling and send help

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/02/states.economy/index.html?iref=newssearch

This article can be summed up in the comment:

Their message to Congress: Stop the partisan bickering and show us the money.

States are looking to the Federal Government for help in this recession and begging them to put partisanship aside and get something accomplished.

What Is a Party?

My personal definition of a political party really is as simple “as a group of people who have similar ideas on how the country should be run.” In the history of our world, these groups of people have become a bit more simplified and official, so to speak. By this I mean there are plenty of leniencies in our (America’s) party system in regards to ideology. Some people consider the terms Liberals and Conservatives to be political parties but I believe those terms define a person’s placement on a political spectrum based on ideologies. A Conservative might associate themselves with the Republican Party and Liberals with the Democratic Party, but this is most definitely not always the case.

George Washington would not have approved of these "factions" we have today.
"The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish Government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established Government."

"All obstructions to the execution of the Laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency.."

In Washington's farewell speech he seems to allude to the idea that these Parties are destructive organizations to create conflict among citizens. He was right.

Tom Delay took a much different approach in his farewell speech. According to the Washington Post "DeLay suggested that pundits who complain about 'the divisive partisan rancor that supposedly weakens our democracy" are merely nostalgic for the days when most Republicans meekly accepted minority status. DeLay was never one of those Republicans.'" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/08/AR2006060801342.html)