Redstate Roundtable

Posted at 10:51pm on Jul. 9, 2008 Redstate Roundtable: Obama's Unending Psychology of Change

That's a lotta flipflop

By Ben Domenech

Let's sit down next to the couch for a moment to discuss this. Five questions for Contributors (and you!) are at the end.

Over the past few months, a strong meme has developed regarding Barack Obama: that his loyalties to a position are only as strong as they need to be given the demands of the moment. His eagerness to throw close associates or even mentors like Jeremiah Wright under the bus if the press or the political right demands it is second to none in the history of presidential politics. He has no qualms about shifting positions - such as on meeting without preconditions with the leaders of enemy nations - if it will squelch a media storm or make it easier to win a state. He has not a stubborn bone in his body, it appears - and is, to put it simply, not a fan of inconvenient truths.

But in the month since Obama cinched the Democratic nomination, this stream of flipflops has become a torrent. A brief summary:

-Obama said the D.C. handgun ban and the almost as restrictive Chicago ban were constitutional and supported handgun restrictions, but now he says definitively that it was unconstitutional.
-Obama promised he would accept public financing when he thought he'd need it, but then decided he'd rather not.
-Obama opposed welfare reform while in Illinois, but now says he supports it.
-Obama opposed the death penalty on principle and supported a moratorium on capital punishment - even implying that Osama Bin Laden should not be "martyred" by it - and now he believes it is justified not just in the case of homicide and terrorism, but also of child rape and other circumstances.
-Obama opposed legal immunity for telecom companies for cooperating with government security surveillance, but now he claims to support it.

And just this past week came two of the largest flipflops - certainly the greatest ones I have ever witnessed DURING THE COURSE of a presidential campaign:

-Obama supported immediate day one withdrawal of troops from Iraq, but now says he'll "refine" his position and listen to the commanders on the ground if they tell him to phase out the troops slowly, while still claiming to support an impossible mark of 16 months to a total withdrawal. You can read the three different versions of this new Obama position on Iraq here.

-Obama supported unlimited access to abortion, including taxpayer funding and opposing born alive infant protection, but now he says he supports states rights to restrict and even prohibit all late-term abortions, and have now requirement to have a health exception that allows for the (overwhelmingly used) basis of "mental health."

The story is here, and his inevitable attempt to refine further is here. As for the original interview, the full text is here, and below the fold.

Read on for the questions and responses...

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Posted at 11:14pm on Jun. 13, 2008 REDSTATE ROUNDTABLE #13: What John McCain Underestimates

Does The Leader Have The Troops?

By Robert A. Hahn

This Roundtable concerns Mark Halperin's piece concerning What John McCain Underestimates.

Thomas Crown: The "Major League vs Little League" difference between Obama's infrastructure and his own. This is the only one that worries me. Obama's actually a fairly crappy politician from any standpoint but organization. McCain is actually a pretty good politician from any standpoint but organization.

Moe Lane: He's an organizational god? Then why didn't he win California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, or Massachusetts?

Thomas Crown: No, he's not crappy at organization. There's a difference. He's not Bush in 2000. He's Clinton in 1992.

More...

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Posted at 3:00pm on Jun. 10, 2008 REDSTATE ROUNDTABLE #12: Is It Time To Bring Back Temperamental Conservatism?

Time To Play Small Ball?

By Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin: One of the criticisms being made against the various permutations of a new GOP agenda being circulated these days is that they are too small-bore, too modest and detail-oriented to compete with the broad "Hope and Change" themes of Barack Obama's campaign. (See Patrick Ruffini's critique).

At the same time, there's a school of thought that says that George W. Bush has run into troubles in his presidency precisely when he was too ambitious, whether in his promotion of democracy in Iraq or his unsuccessful attempts to get Congress and the public behind sweeping reforms of Social Security and immigration policy, macro-initiatives that died a death by a thousand cuts from opponents on all sides. Critics have charged that the GOP under Gingrich and under Bush has abandoned Burkean modesty and incrementalism and bought into the rhetoric of revolution, which it then predictably fails to deliver for many of the same reasons why the Democrats have failed over the years to sell things like radical health care reform and gays in the military.

With Republicans likely to be playing defense on domestic policy over the next few years, I've been wondering if maybe it's time, for tactical reasons, to give more weight to what I think of as temperamental conservatism over ideological conservatism - to argue at every turn for smaller, more modest reforms as opposed to sweeping plans to junk the tax code, abolish Cabinet-level departments, etc. On health care, for example, there remains a lot of public desire for change, but huge apprehension about radical change - and we may well be best situated to oppose a massive plan by Obama if we are offering more modest alternatives.

So, I open the floor: should the GOP agenda seek to reclaim the initiative of broad, bold, visionary, "choice not an echo" change of the Goldwater/Reagan/Gingrich variety? Or should we be positioning our party more as the party of sober adult leadership that knows the limitations of our system?

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Posted at 10:50am on May 29, 2008 REDSTATE ROUNDTABLE #11: High Oil Prices

In Which Blackhedd Takes On The American Motorist

By Dan McLaughlin

What follows started as a regular email thread but spiralled into something we felt should be posted as a roundtable on the site - a discussion of the future of gasoline-powered automobiles in America.

Hunter Baker: This interview is profoundly disturbing with regard to the oil situation. Can anyone help me feel better about it?

The rest of the roundtable follows...

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Posted at 2:12pm on May 23, 2008 REDSTATE ROUNDTABLE #10: The Democratic Veepstakes

Who Will Sit At Obama's Right Hand?

By Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin: Let's open the floor: assuming Obama hangs on to claim the Democratic nomination, who will he pick as his running mate? Who should he pick?

Obama's problem is that for all his strengths as a candidate, he's got a bunch of conflicting vulnerabilities - he lacks national security credibility and executive experience; he has no military record; he's been weak with white working-class voters; he's a relatively inexperienced politician; some women will want a woman on the ticket to soothe the sense that Hillary got passed over; he also wants to appeal to Latino voters, but a female or Latino running mate might be too much to swallow for a lot of white male voters. Not only is that a long list, but the identity-politics pitfalls mean it's a contradictory one.

Read On for the rest of the roundtable...

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Posted at 10:23pm on May 8, 2008 REDSTATE ROUNDTABLE #9: The McCain Veepstakes

By Jeff Emanuel

Once again, RedState presents a peek inside the minds of those who make up the site's Editorial staff. This week, the RS Contributors debate Sen. McCain's potential Vice Presidential selection.

The big question: who should McCain pick? And, to revisit a question we took on back in February, should McCain try to make his choice early, or should he wait until close to the September convention?

Dan McLaughlin: I have laid out my own rules for who I think McCain should rule out , and I'll just say here that if the choice was mine to make today, I think my preferences would be SC-GOV Mark Sanford, RI-GOV Don Carcieri, and MN-GOV Tim Pawlenty, in that order, although I'm actually leaning towards the idea that Carcieri might be electorally the best bet in helping McCain crack Pennsylvania and maybe even New Jersey.

Continued below the fold...

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Posted at 4:44pm on Apr. 30, 2008 REDSTATE ROUNDTABLE #8: Obama, Rev. Wright, and the Voters

The Contributors Take On The Hot Topic Of The Day

By Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin: Three questions about Obama and Rev. Wright:

1. Did they coordinate this week's events to give Obama an excuse to make a clean break?

2. Has the Wright controversy, on its own or combined with Bittergate, Bill Ayers, Mrs. Obama, the flag pin flap, etc., inflicted an injury to Obama's campaign that will sooner or later be fatal even if more doesn't come out?

3. Is Obama going to suffer a net loss (which I would define as Hillary winning Indiana by at least as much as Obama wins NC) on May 6?

Discussion below the fold...

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Posted at 10:47pm on Apr. 21, 2008 REDSTATE ROUNDTABLE #7: What Are Our Top Priority Races in 2008?

John McCain's Not The Only Republican Running

By Dan McLaughlin

Unfortunately, due to the press of other business, we only had a few of the Contributors available to participate in the latest Roundtable. But feel free to weigh in with your own thoughts.

Looking beyond the White House, Republicans will be running in 35 Senate races, 11 Governors' races, and several hundred House races, a number of which will be hotly contested, plus state legislative and other campaigns. What should be the most important races of those, the ones in which money and attention from bloggers and activists will have the greatest potential to have impact?

Read On...

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Posted at 11:32pm on Apr. 12, 2008 REDSTATE ROUNDTABLE #6: Should Conservatives Donate To The RNC, NRSC and NRCC?

Earthen Vessels.

By Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin: In today's campaign finance environment, you can support Republican candidates for public office in one of five ways (correct me if I am missing something here):

1. You can give to them directly through traditional fundraising.

2. You can identify and direct donations to particular candidates through web intermediaries like Rightroots, Big Red Tent, and Slatecard.

3. You can give to the formal party apparatus - the Republican National Committee (RNC), National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), or National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) - which then distribute funds to candidates as needed in their own judgment, as well as spending money and running ads for more general party-building activities.

4. You can support a PAC that, in turn, gives money to candidates, although in general that similarly means letting the PAC decide where they money should go.

5. Similarly, you can support advocacy groups (e.g., the Club for Growth) that get involved in campaigns.

Let's focus on #3. A lot of conservatives have been formally or informally boycotting some of these organizations for the past 2-3 years, in some cases due to protests on policy issues (e.g., immigration), but also in some cases due to frustration with the decisions made, most notoriously the NRSC's decision in to pour resources into defending more liberal incumbents in primary challenges by conservatives in Pennsylvana (Arlen Specter in 2004) and Rhode Island (Lincoln Chaffee in 2006), in Chaffee's case in a losing cause that drained away resources that could have been spent in close races in places like Ohio, Montana or Virginia.

The question is: should conservatives give money to these organizations, or some of them, or none?

Roundtable discussion below the fold...

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Posted at 8:46pm on Mar. 6, 2008 RedState (mini) Roundtable: Racism v. Sexism FTW!

Schadenfreude! Schadenfreude! Schadenfreude!

By Ben Domenech

So, this email thread got interesting, and we thought rather than rewriting it into four diaries, we'd just share it with all of you.

This map looks fun

Read on for a special appearance from Al Gore:

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Posted at 7:17pm on Mar. 3, 2008 Redstate Roundtable #4: The GOP/Conservative Domestic Agenda 2009-2012

By Neil Stevens

For this week's roundtable, let's discuss what Republicans in general and conservatives in particular should pursue as our top domestic federal legislative priorities over the next four years. Obviously, if McCain is elected, or if the GOP recaptures at least one House of Congress in November, we will have a foothold from which Republicans can propose a legislative agenda of our own. If none of those things happen, we should still consider what our agenda should look like besides (as the late Bill Buckley would say) simply standing athwart Obamania shouting "stop."

Read on for the discussion...

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Posted at 5:25pm on Feb. 21, 2008 REDSTATE ROUNDTABLE #3: WARGAMING THE 08 RACE AGAINST AN UNCERTAIN OPPONENT

What McCain Should Do If The D Race Drags On

By Dan McLaughlin

Let's spin a scenario here. You're a senior adviser to the McCain campaign. It's the morning of April 23, and Hillary Clinton has just won Pennsylvania, capping a comeback that effectively ensures that Obama can't clinch the nomination, or easily force her out of the race, just by winning primaries. You assume that the Dems will thus continue their primary battle through Puerto Rico on June 7, with no obvious mechanism for resolution. You have to formulate advice for the candidate about how to approach this unique race.

1. You need to be prepared to face both candidates - but in a world of finite resources, who do you make your top priority, and why? Should Sen. McCain and the campaign start focusing public attacks/contrasts on one of the candidates, or both, or just try to hold fire until there's a nominee on the other side?

2. When should Sen. McCain plan to announce his running mate - wait for the September GOP Convention, wait until you see who the opponent is - or try to underline GOP unity vs. Democratic chaos by announcing a ticket in, say, June?

3. Are there specific steps Sen. McCain could or should take to take advantage of the unique period when we have a nominee and the Democrats don't?

4. Should Sen. McCain resign from the Senate (his replacement would be selected by Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat and Obama supporter, but would have to be a Republican) and call on his opponent to do the same?

Answers below the fold...

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Posted at 3:35pm on Feb. 14, 2008 Redstate Roundtable II: How McCain Can Reach Out To Conservatives

By Ben Domenech

REDSTATE ROUNDTABLE II: HOW McCAIN CAN REACH OUT TO CONSERVATIVES

John McCain will need conservative voters to win in November. Some, of course, will support him automatically, either out of a sense that he's conservative enough or out of a desire to keep the Democrats out of the White House. But what can McCain realistically and credibly do between now and then to win over enough of the GOP base to have a fighting chance against Hillary or Obama? Which parts of the base will be the most fertile targets for his appeals?

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Posted at 7:51pm on Feb. 6, 2008 REDSTATE ROUNDTABLE #1: CONSERVATIVES AND THE PRIMARY PROCESS

Did The Process Fail Us? Did We Fail It? And How Do We Do Better Next Time?

By Dan McLaughlin

This is the first of what we hope will be a semi-regular occurrence, email roundtables among the RS Contributors. With a special appearance by the elusive Thomas Crown.

Dan McLaughlin: So, the great Mardi Gras primary day has come and gone, and while John McCain has not wrapped up the nomination, he seems now to be in a commanding position, with few realistic obstacles left to overcome. I think most of us Contributors, other than Adam, would agree that Sen. McCain is not our first choice, and that all things being equal we would prefer a candidate who takes more conservative policy positions and uses more conservative rhetoric than McCain on a number of issues. So I open the floor to a couple of related questions: Did the primary process fail conservatives? Did the GOP electorate prefer to pick a less conservative candidate this time around, and if not, why do we appear likely to get one? And how do we conservatives going about the business of ensuring that next time - 2012, 2016 - we get a more conservative nominee?

Read On...

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