The URL of this column is:
http://politicalusa.com/columnists/brewer/brewer_012.htm
…AT LEAST AL SHARPTON IS HEADED
FOR THE PEN
By Jeff Brewer
jbrewer@politicalusa.com
5/29/2001
Good riddance to Jim Jeffords. No need to dwell on this wee man for a moment longer. With his deed done, conservatives must wash their hands of this Vermonter, and formulate a strategy to cope with the abrupt change that’s suddenly thrust the American Fabian Party’s Tom Daschle into the Majority Leader’s seat. We need to strategize about how we’re intending to deal with a Senate that rests safely in the hands of a party that is completely opposed to capitalism and the free market, to missile defense and American hegemony, and to overly qualified jurists that display any sort of affinity for the doctrine of Original Intent.
With Democrats now boasting chiefdom over all committees and over the floor schedule, President Bush faces a monumental task in pushing our agenda into law and in stamping his print on the federal judiciary. Ted Kennedy, Joseph Biden and Patrick Leahy will see to this, as they employ the type of obstructionist tactics they’ve become so famous for.
Corporations and small businesses haven’t a prayer either; the inevitable prostitution of the democratic party to the will of wacko greens means business gets hit with another flurry of regulatory uppercuts. You can forget about a three-pronged missile defense being deployed any time soon, too. Obtaining the essential funding necessary for the research and development that can perfect such a system and justify its deployment will be next to impossible.
And I don’t mean to sound so despondent; it’s just that I see this as the reality of a dreadful situation. Unlike many of my heroes that control the airwaves (Rush Limbaugh) and those that dominate FOX News, I don’t see this jump by Jeffords as having only short-term consequences. I see the potential for a lame duck President Bush. Sure, we still have the same 100 Senators (62 of whom voted to pass President Bush’s tax cut) that have shown a tendency to support a few of Bush’s initiatives; indeed, the President seems to have 51-52 votes he can count on most of the time. And even when he hasn’t had those votes during these first few months, a Republican majority has been able to hold off on a vote until enough senators could be secured for a bill’s passage. But now, with the Democrats at the helm, you can expect the party’s liberal core of 45 or so senators to kill the President’s proposals either in committee or else bring them to the floor before Republicans have garnered enough support. Worse, when they know the President’s bills have a majority of Senators behind them, they’ll wield their scheduling power to allow themselves ample time to spread lies and foment unwarranted anger and fear amongst the clueless masses, thereby influencing polls and persuading moderates to change their vote. So in effect, a minority of liberals in the United States Senate controls the entire agenda, simply because a "D" is conjoined with more Senators names than an "R".
To illustrate my point, I dare say that the President’s tax cut wouldn’t have seen the light of day in the Senate had Tom Daschle been at the reins to begin with, or else the plan would have been pared down to below a trillion dollars. Not because the President didn’t ultimately have the votes to pass a $1.35 trillion tax cut (back-loaded as it is), but because the democrats would have put it to a vote before sufficient numbers had been amassed to pass the legislation or even nuked it in committee.
President Bush has serious problems, as you can see. I don’t believe there to be a danger of democrats actually getting any liberal legislation passed since they have to contend with a usually conservative House and a conservative White House. But they can certainly frustrate and block our agenda.
So how do we combat this? Let me count the ways.
For starters, Senate and House Republicans must continue to push our agenda. Duh! Fervent passion for our causes is needed now more than ever; shying away from principled stands accomplishes nothing in shared government. What you’ll get if you cave in is more watered down legislation, and consequently bigger government. The past 4 years have shown that to be true. Until next year’s mid-term elections, Republican congressmen must articulate to the American people not just why the notion of across the board tax cuts is merely a good idea, or why missile defense is merely an option with which to protect Americans. Now is the time for Republicans to speak to the American people about why our ideas are BETTER than anything proposed by the democrats. The sort of confidence and assuredness that has marked the liberals these past couple of decades, is the sort of bravado that we conservatives and our leaders in the congress and in the White House must espouse in the coming months. We have to assert our ideological and moral supremacy! Remember, we are right, and we are on the side of Truth! Democrats have done this for years, even when they haven’t been in power. If Republicans want to maintain any clout and sway, the days of wishy-washy "bi-partisanship" and "compromise" (which are code words for liberal primacy) must end. Otherwise, there really isn’t any difference in voting for Republicans rather than overt liberals.
In its place, President Bush and Tom Delay and Dick Armey and other conservatives need to adopt the tactics of our great standard bearer Ronald Reagan. President Bush in particular, needs to eventually go before the American people, over the heads of congress and the press, and tell Americans why exactly our vision is better than liberalism. He needs to make a better case for vouchers and local control, for missile defense, for the immediate repeal of the death tax and the marriage tax, for the outlaw of partial birth abortion, for further reductions in marginal tax rates, for why wealthy Americans should get a larger tax reduction than those that pay little in government excise, and why atheistic communism (and its sneaky little brother liberalism/socialism) is still the most evil force in all the world. If he has to take 20 minutes one night every week on the major networks and the cable news networks, then do it! If he has to cloak his aims in more pedestrian garb to justify his weekly time slot, then do it! Just get it done.
In the Congress, conservatives must also work to paint these clowns running the Senate as the dastardly obstructionists they are. Paint them as socialists and liberals and friends of big, expansive government; those aren’t bad words or inaccurate descriptions. Actually, it’s the Truth! More than this, though, tell the American people which of our proposals these goons are opposing. Every time, Tom Daschle or Ted Kennedy or Dick Gephardt proposes to increase spending (taxes) or straddle business with another regulation, we need to go before the American people and quote them line and verse the tax increase and/or the regulation these socialists have in mind for Americans and our businesses. I suggest Congressman Steve Largent take on this duty as spokesman to go before the cameras whenever the time is appropriate. He isn’t a lightning rod like a Tom DeLay or a Bob Barr, and the Congressman is a handsome man, which scores points with women. If he runs for governor of Oklahoma, then I propose another solid conservative that isn’t a lightning rod like DeLay or Barr.
And hey, if none of this works, we can take heart in knowing that that blow-hard Al Sharpton will be in the Puerto Rican pen for possibly 90 days. Better than nothing.