Party People

Tony Garcia - who's made a stir by his criticism of Sixth District GOP House nominee Sen. Michele Bachmann - responds to his critics, and to me:

Some of you let your partisanship overwhelm your ethical center and ignore the facts.

Let's stop right there.

I like Tony. He writes a good blog. "Race to the Right" is an excellent talk show. Like most conservatives, I agree with him probably 85-90% of the time.

And - as laboriously noted elsewhere, I live in CD4 and have no dog in the race - until they go to Washington, when I have a huge dog in the running.

But arguing by proclaiming you, alone, stand for ethics, and your opponents stand only for party, is...presumptuous?

Allowing for the fact that I don't live in the district, and haven't stayed up on the minutiae of the race, here are the "ethical" issues I see brought up about Bachmann (at least, the ones that rise above the fever-swamp hallucinations of the "Dump Bachmann" group therapy project):

1. Bulldozing the nomination process. Bachmann's supporters are alleged to have bum-rushed the caucuses and BPOU conventions, and gamed the convention rules system to try to steal a march on her opponents. Now, if I were not a Bachmann convention delegate, I'd be upset. If I were a voter who viewed the natterings of party wonks with the sort bored bemusement that I suspect most of the world does, I suspect I'm thinking "so what?" An unpardonable offense to wonks isn't even a trifle in the real world. Question: Why should this matter to voters? And before you say "ethics matter", please show me where any of this rises to the level of needing to matter to voters? Bachmann the blocking and tackling and organizing well - and that's the stuff that actually win races. She plays politics hard and sometimes a little rough? Honestly, I've seen nothing here that makes Bachmann anything other than a female, Republican Lyndon Johnson, at the very worst.
2. Cable bills? Yeah, I'd be interested in hearing the story. But it's not news that, since being an elected legislator pays less (often a lot less) than many legislators' civilian jobs, that many of them push the limits of the expense policy. Which is not to excuse it - I'm the fiscal conservative, remember? - but I suspect that if you tossed every legislator that had a questionable expense report, you'd run out of candidates pretty fast. And again - the voter might be forgiven for saying "So what? Where's something that affect the job she'd do representing me in Washington?"

Do I want my elected representatives - the Republican ones, anyway - to be ethical? Absolutely.

Do I think anything that Tony Garcia and Bachmann's other detractors have brought up rise to the level of interesting anyone who's not a wonk or a compulsive CPA?

I'm not convinced.

Detractors: State the case in terms that matter to people who have never been to a GOP convention.

Instead you choose to attack the dissenter. I expect that. It is the new page of the GOP playbook (well, I saw it added last year by Kennedy supporters and Eibensteiner supporters, so 'new' is relative).

Tony, it's a page in the playbook of every organization...

What I will say quickly is to Mitch's post.
We're at war. We're also nursing a strong, vibrant economic recovery. Both of them can and will go straight to hell if the Democrats and their "happy to pay for a better _____" take over the House. For all their caterwauling about Bush's deficits, a Democrat Congress (and we're not talking Clinton/Lieberman/DLC Demcrats, these days - remember that!) would drag us back to the glory days of Tip O'Neill faster than you can say "national malaise".

Sorry, the responsibility of the delegates was to take that kind of stuff into consideration. Electability I believe is the general category. Ethics is another major category (one that the GOP has been casting aside recently). Each candidate was asked if there was anything in their backgrounds, past or present, that would embarrass the GOP should it be made public. Bachmann answered "No" and the committee knew that was a lie.

And, as I said - I remain to be convinced that anything that anyone has said affects Bachmann's electability by the general public.

They had the opportunity to not forward Bachmann's name for endorsement and from what my source inside that committee reported that was close to happening. The only reason it didn't was for fear of their own personal safety the exact wording was, "we would not make it out of this building alive", and was mostly toungue in cheek. I don't think they actually meant they'd be killed.

That would be an ethical lapse.

There is a danger in Speaker Pelosi actually coming to fruition. If that happens it is not my fault, but the fault of the endorsing convention.

Well, the general election will tell.

Posted by Mitch at May 10, 2006 06:28 AM | TrackBack