Morning Briefing
For August 30, 2013
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1. This is “Read My Lips” All Over Again
During the 1988 Republican Convention, then
Vice President George H. W. Bush uttered a phrase that would destroy his
Presidency — “Read my lips, no new taxes.”
Just two
years later, voters realized they had read a lie on President Bush’s
lips. He negotiated a budget agreement with Democrats in the United
States Congress that raised taxes. Republicans in the House of
Representatives rallied against their own President. Ed Rollins, then
Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, advised
Republicans to campaign against the President in 1990. “Do not hesitate
to distance yourself from the President,” Rollins wrote in a famous
memo. President Bush demanded congressional Republicans fire Rollins,
but the House Republicans held on him. The House GOP lost a net of 8
seats and the Senate GOP lost 1 seat.
President
Bush would ride a wave of popularity in 1991 due to victory in the Gulf
War and use a 91% approval rating to have Ed Rollins fired by refusing
to campaign with Republican candidates until Rollins left. A year later,
with a struggling economy, a conservative base that would neither
forget nor forgive his lie, and a primary challenger named Pat Buchanan
to embarrass him in New Hampshire with a primary win, President George
H. W. Bush would be defeated by Bill Clinton. Conservatives were willing
to throw out President Bush because of his lie. Many of them rallied to
a third party, H. Ross Perot, who garnered 18.9% of the vote.
Bush got 63% of self-described moderate
Republicans and 82% of self-described conservative Republicans. Compare
that to four years later after one full term of Bill Clinton. Bob Dole
would get 72% of moderate Republicans, up 9% from George H. W. Bush, and
88% of conservative Republicans, up 6% from George H. W. Bush. Among
conservative independents, Bush got 53% with Perot getting 30%. Bob Dole
would get 60% of that demographic four years later.
In the Republican Primary of 1992, Pat
Buchanan, explaining his decision to primary President Bush went
straight back to the 1990 tax increase, said
If the country wants to go in a liberal
direction, if the country wants to go in the direction of [Senate
Democratic Leader] George Mitchell and [Speaker] Tom Foley, it doesn’t
bother me as long as I’ve made the best case I can. What I can’t stand
are the back-room deals. They’re all in on it, the insider game, the
establishment game—this is what we’re running against.
One upstart candidate who took Rollins’s
advice to not wrap his arms around President Bush was a state
representative from Ohio named John Boehner. Boehner had primaried a
sitting Republican, Rep. Buz Lukens, who had refused to resign after a
sex scandal. Boehner, in a heavily Republican district, beat Lukens in
the primary, then won the general. Perhaps it was the heavy tilt to the
GOP in that district that left Boehner immune to the national angst over
George H. W. Bush’s lie. I say perhaps, because John Boehner, Mitch
McConnell, and the rest of the Republican leadership in Washington are
on the verge of their own “Read My Lips” lie. . . . please click here for the rest of the post →
2. Does Allison Benedikt Think This Only Because Her Husband Does?
By now you’ve heard about this, I’m sure. Allison Benedikt thinks you and I are terrible if we send our kids to private school.
I actually do send my kids to private school.
I do have to wonder, though, if Allison
Benedikt only thinks this because her husband thinks it. Benedikt’s
husband is John Cook, the Gawker blogger. Last September John declare
that private school should be banned.
In December of 2012, Allison admitted they
were tapping out their resources to send their kids to preschool. That’s
right. They were paying to send their kids to preschool.
And now this.
So why should I wonder if Allison Benedikt is
easily led by her husband? Well, she has admitted before how malleable
she is to his influence. . . . please click here for the rest of the post →
3. Here we go again, with PPP in Virginia
Here we go again with Public Policy Polling.
They did a poll for the League of Conservation Voters on the 2013 race
for Governor in Virginia, and the electorate predicted by PPP is a
strange one.
You see, it doesn’t look like Virginia. . . . please click here for the rest of the post →
4. The Passion of Establishment GOPers in Primaries
It’s been a tough year for conservatives in Washington.
The year started out January 1 with the Biden-McConnell tax increases and $332 billion stimulus bill. Then
House Republicans met at Williamsburg and decided to suspend the debt
ceiling and to fund Obamacare in the March CR – all for the promise of
fighting Obamacare and a balanced budget during the next CR/debt
ceiling. Now they are abrogating that promise.
Instead
of the House jamming the Senate with good legislation, and Senate
Republicans blocking bad legislation, we witnessed the opposite dynamic. Senate
Republicans whipped up votes for Democrats to help pass an online sales
tax, the unconstitutional Violence Against Women Act, a massive
Farm/Food Stamp bill, amnesty/immigration deform, Filibuster deform, and
to confirm every radical Obama nominee under the sun – from Tom Perez
and Todd Jones (ATF Director) to Jack Lew, Chuck Hagel, and Samantha
Power.
As we
head into the most critical part of the 113th Congress, Republican
leaders are working to block a fight on Obamacare to free up the
schedule for amnesty instead of blocking amnesty to fight Obamacare. We
who have fought for years to elect Republicans are left to wonder if
there’s a dime’s worth of difference between these people. Why are our guys working to push Democrat priorities, especially while most of them are politically unpopular? . . . please click here for the rest of the post →
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Erick Erickson
Editor-in-Chief, RedState
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