It’s almost 2014. Almost time for another mid-term election that’s going to pit the MNGOP – the party of plucky volunteers, creative fundraisers and circular firing squads – against the Minnesota DFL, the policy body on whose narrative’s behalf the Unions, the non-profits, the trial bar, the media, the Alliance for a “Better” Minnesota and a whooole lot of plutocrats with deep pockets and deeper white liberal guilt spend millions and millions and millions of dollars and hours of paid labor.
The Minnesota GOP has always been a party of uneasy factions – although it really became an issue after about 1994, when the Reagan Revolution finally poked its nose out into the Minnesota cold.
The GOP has quite a few factions these days:
- The “Liberty” Movement. The “Ron Paul” clique took the party by storm in 2012 with a very effective organization – and, arguably, waned badly by the end of the year, as people realized that some parts of the organization -some (by no means all) of their delegates to the 2012 RNC in Tampa, the leadership in CD5 and CD4 – were more interested in sticking it to the GOP than going after the DFL. Maybe they waned as their activists walked away. Maybe they’re keeping their powder dry. Maybe the dumb ones went away and the smart ones – like most of the “Liberty” activists in CD2, or my own SD65, among others – focused their energies on actually winning elections. Either way, they’re a faction. As, for that matter, is the more-mainstream but equally liberty-conscious “Liberty Caucus”…
- The Tea Party – The wave of activists that came out, in many cases for the first time, in the wake of Obamacare. They’ve had a disproportionate impact on the GOP; many of the most effective conservatives in the Legislature came from the Tea Party class of 2010 and 2012; go ahead, count the number of Tea Party candidates on the Taxpayers League’s Best Friends of the Taxpayers list. The Tea Party class of 2010 drove the GOP to the right – which was a very good thing.
- The Social Conservatives – They’re out there. They don’t get much press these days – the media has moved on to calling fiscalcons “extremists” these days – but there are enough pro-lifers, traditional marriage supporters and anti-stem-cell people to sway endorsements in a good chunk of Minnesota. They aren’t the power bloc they used to be, but they are still important – and not just at endorsement time.
- “Moderates”: We know they exist – the media keeps telling us so. And someone voted for Tom Horner. Seriously? I may have met two Republicans in the past decade who still pine for the days of Arne Carlson. But the GOP still has the likes of Jim Abeler, in whose district the conventional wisdom says he’s the most conservative candidate who can win (as it once said about Steve Smith and Connie Doepke and Geoff Michel; the conventional wisdom was right once…), and places like Minneapolis and Saint Paul where that same conventional wisdom says that the likes of Norm Coleman and Cam Winton are the most conservative candidates who have a shot at actually winning elections. And the record shows they have a point.
- The Establishment: Who are “the Establishment?” Good question. “The Establishment”, as cited by the Liberty clique in 2012, sometimes seems a bit like Keyser Soze; everyone’s heard of it, but nobody’s seen it. Who is “the establishment?” I’ve been called “the establishment”, as recently as last winter at my “Liberty”-dominated Senate District. Near as I can tell, “The Establishment” is the network of big-money donors that have been the party’s fiscal major muscles. Pragmatic, not especially invested in any ideology, infuriating to the people in all the factions above for whom principle reigns and pragmatism comes in a distant second if it shows up at all.
The Liberty movement likes to claim that the GOP can not win without it. There’s a germ of truth to that. The GOP needs the Liberty crowd’s numbers – and Liberty movement will never win anything on its own, either.
Beyond that? None of the GOP’s factions is worth anything on its own; all of them are minorities within a large minority in this state.
And as long as the factions are bickering with each other, there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell the Party is going to be of any use helping candidates reach out to enough undecideds, “independents” and newcomers to activism to help them get to the majority.
And the shame of it is, the factions do agree on almost everything!
The Party – as in, the office full of functionaries down at 225 Park Avenue, kitty corner from the Capitol – needs to hold a “meeting of the five families”. They need – in my humble opinion – to get the leadership of the various factions together to agree to put aside the things they disagree on (in public, anyway), and focus on the things that do, in fact, tie us together as a party. Which involves negotiating – something most of the factions eschew – but negotiating with an aim toward changing the state’s (and the party’s) political climate so that all of the factions have a shot at making the difference they want to make.
This might mean carving up some “turf”, ideologically. It might also mean all of the factions realizing that even if you’re a liberty Republican or a pro-lifer, having a Tea Partier or a business-first conservative in office is going to be a better proposition for your cause than, say, two chambers full of Paul Thissens.
Idealistic? Sure. I’m a conservative in Saint Paul. Idealism keeps me alive.
Pollyannaish? About as Pollyannaish as Don Corleone’s “meeting of the five families”; the MNGOP’s fratricidal bloodletting is a waste of everyone’s time and effort.
Making the GOP effective means finding a way to get the major factions to work together against the real enemy.
That’d be the DFL, for the benefit of some people I’ve met lately.
And – just a quick poll here – how has two years of circular firing squad done us any favors?
Appropos not much at all, Marianne Stebbins shut down her FB account on Friday or Saturday. Not like I obsessively followed her FB account, but I didn’t see any comments of hers or posts of hers to indicate any reason why, or incident that happened that she felt the need to do so.
Or maybe that was the point. But it just seemed kinda sudden, after living thru the election and all the negativity directed at her for being the impromptu leader of the MN Ron Paul/Ironclad Libertarian faction, and what that did to the greater GOP mission in this state.
She’s been hinting at shutting down her FB account for a long time.
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The first thing that comes to mind, at least someone like me who pretty much gets his political education here (and doesn’t usually recognize the various entities referred to) would be to see what the DFL does right.
I do recognize the various MNGOP entities and identify with most of them. However, I am not overly familiar with how many factions the MNDFL has, aside from the polar opposites, or have seen much in the way of discord between them. There are probably as many as the MNGOP has, they just seem good about keeping their bickering in house and presenting a united front to the marginally informed voting public.
I suggest the MNGOP unite, or at least look that way. I don’t think that what we are is much more important that what we strive to be. Perhaps that’s another variation of Mr. Berg’s perfect vs. good enough parable. Young people have been raised to avoid conflict and bad feelings. Perhaps they are drawn to the group whose behavior doesn’t bring them back to the days when dad still lived at home … or those right before he left.
I’m beginning to like the French solution reported in today’s U.K. Telegraph:
“Down and out, the French flee a nation in despair: The failing economy and harsh taxes of François Hollande’s beleaguered nation are sending thousands packing – to Britain’s friendlier shores”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/10390571/france-hollande-taxes-socialist-farrage.html
I may be able to tell you who the “establishment” are. They are people like me who believe that any Republican is better than any Democrat. This puts us at odds with the other factions, most notably the Liberty group, who believe that “100%” is not good enough in a candidate. They also believe that not voting for the Republican OR Democrat somehow puts a third choice on the ballot. Just think, if just 300 more people had decided that Norm Coleman was a “good enough” Republican, Obamacare would never have come to pass! Please, don’t let it happen again!
“It might also mean all of the factions realizing that even if you’re a liberty Republican or a pro-lifer, having a Tea Partier or a business-first conservative in office is going to be a better proposition for your cause than, say, two chambers full of Paul Thissens.”
Would God that all could see this. But it seems to me that the Socons hate Libertarians more than they hate the Bolsheviks who actually rule us, and the Libertarians so despise Socons that they’d rather see the world burn than get behind them in any way. Do get back to me when you find some key to a rapprochment between these groups.
Pragmatic centrist Republicans do very well in most of the US in local and state government. Those pragmatic centrists have done what the federal party has asked and created safe seats and closed primaries which nominate lunatic ideologue candidates. Improving the intraparty democracy would help to keep out the lunatic fringe.
Emery – in other words, there are two GOPs – the ones that so what the Dema want, and the “lunatic fringe”. Got it.
MBerg says: “perfect is the enemy of good enough”.
The “lunatic fringe” lost the senate for the GOP last election. As I mentioned before: The Tea Party will rescue the Democrats once again.
Republicans at the state level are far more pragmatic than their tea party brethren in the House of Representatives, and generally run on an efficient government, low tax platform. Because the federal Democrats resolutely refuse to shift more social programs from the federal to the state level, there are few social welfare programs for them to defend. Education is the biggest state program, but Democrats reject education reform, which wins them no votes. If the Democrats wanted to win at the state level, they should have made healthcare a state responsibility with federal subsidies. This would have forced state legislatures to grapple with a major social program, which would have favored the Democrats. More balanced state legislatures is the only practical way to avoid gerrymandering. The Republicans are strong in the House because they won the states. Before gloating too much about the permanent minority status of federal Republicans, the Democrats should pause to consider the number of states where they are the ones in a permanent minority, and why they seem unable to present an attractive platform at the state level outside highly urbanized areas.
J. Ewing, I understand your point, however that is what has given us the Bush’s, Colemans, McCains, Pawlenty’s, Abelers (of course I realize the article is specifically about the MNGOP).
Many “establishment” Republicans have done little to “manage the growth” of government and spending, and have done nothing to cut government and spending.
Can the factions unite behind…lets see, a “Republican” Governor that seemingly aborted the concept of private property rights in signing in to law the smoking ban?
I know there is no way I would EVER be able to support Pawlenty for ANY office going forward.
Republicans at the state level are far more pragmatic than their tea party brethren in the House of Representatives, and generally run on an efficient government, low tax platform.
Sure, they run on it – but they don’t vote like it. Further, believing that any R is better than any D is a distinction without a difference. Voting on that basis is analogous to kicking another can down another road – and part of the reason why we find ourselves kicking the financial crisis down the road. Both are all hot air and posturing that change nothing because no one in the one party – or the majority of the other – is willing to make the hard choices to correct the problem. Gee, it’s almost as if there’s just one party – the Power party.
Finally, as a libertarian and a So-Con, I find these philosophies quite consistent. It would take a lot more time than I care to spend right now to explain this, but essentially, “good” laws may appear to make “good” men – but they don’t change hearts. The Gospel is still the Gospel whether under capitalist, socialist, communist or anarchist rule.
“I understand your point, however that is what has given us the Bush’s, Colemans, McCains, Pawlenty’s, Abelers…”
And it is voters who will NOT vote for Republicans in the general election that give us Clinton, Obama, Franken, Klobuchar, and Dayton. Let’s have those intraparty fights during the convention season, and then settle on the most conservative candidate that can be elected (the Buckley rule). I really believed that Kurt Bills and Tom Emmer were not the best choices we could have made (though I like both of them a lot), and I was right. But when the conventions ended, I was behind them 100% and voted for both.
Just do the simple math, people! If you don’t vote for the Republican, that’s one less vote the Democrat has to get in order to enact their agenda against our wishes. And it isn’t a matter of inches, either. The average GOP legislator votes with conservatives roughly 76% of the time, while the average DFLer votes with conservatives 12% of the time. Now if you think 76% isn’t better than 12%, maybe somebody else should do your exorbitant MN State DFL-raised taxes.
Adrian – don’t see how you can say ‘never vote for (pick your Republican) …….’ after the example J Ewing gave above. Pull like hell on the rope to tug your favorite R across the primary finish line and then vote AGAINST the Democrat if that’s what it takes for you to sleep at night ……..
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I don’t sleep too well at night when the “R’s” grow government and shrink freedoms and abandon their oath to uphold the Constitution the minute they finish taking that oath.
Can I ask, and I’m not trying to be snarky, I am completely serious…why are we constantly asked to support candidates that are increasingly less and less conservative and constitutionally minded, instead of expecting those candidates to be so? Simply so democrats don’t win?
If that’s the case, the end effect is the same, we have a big government, tax and spend individual in office regardless of what “party” won.
Sorry, ewaters925, I think I misread your comment and therefore responded incorrectly.
The GOP needs to implode. There, it’s been said. I will never, and I mean NEVER, call myself a Republican. Not ever. The party’s over. Those of you still hanging onto the “party,” wise up. “Republicans” keep assuming that other Conservatives need to “come back” to the party. Number 1, a lot of us weren’t ever in the party. And, two, how arrogant to think that we’re just some disobedient children that need to be reigned in by Mom. No thank you. Never, and I mean never. Three, THE PROBLEM is that you are all acquiescing to having only “two” choices. The sooner this implosion takes place, the sooner we can have meaningful representation that we can be proud of. Will there be pain? Yes. But rip the bandaid off now instead of pulling hairs out one by one.
The GOP needs to implode. There, it’s been said. I will never, and I mean “NEVER, call myself a Republican. Not ever. The party’s over. Those of you still hanging onto the “party,” wise up. “Republicans” keep assuming that other Conservatives need to “come back” to the party. Number 1, a lot of us weren’t ever in the party. And, two, how arrogant to think that we’re just some disobedient children that need to be reigned in by Mom. No thank you. Never, and I mean never. Three, THE PROBLEM is that you are all acquiescing to having only “two” choices. The sooner this implosion takes place, the sooner we can have meaningful representation that we can be proud of. Will there be pain? Yes. But rip the bandaid off now instead of pulling hairs out one by one.”
I rest my case.
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I rest MY case.
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I’m the only one who rests cases on this blog.
Mitch, I loved this post. After last year’s drubbing MNGOP received a the ballot box, I decided that I needed to institute my own “80/20” rule for endorsing or supporting any candidates. After studying a candidate or elected official, I would estimate how much I agreed with them. If I got to roughly 80 percent agreement, that candidate or official would garner my support and my vote.