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Where Have All The Moderates Gone?



 The morticians are palavering over the corpse of the Foley campaign. Two of them, former U.S. House Representative Chris Shays and former Republican U.S. Senator and Maverick Governor Lowell Weicker, are quoted in a story in a urban newspaper.

Mr. Weicker, who declined to run for a second term as governor after he had fathered Connecticut’s income tax and who as a Maverick Republican Senator often described himself contentedly as a “turd in the Republican Party punchbowl,” thought his former party had pandered to the National Rifle Association (NRA). He said, “I absolutely reject the pandering to the NRA and the gun lobby in Connecticut. They didn't want to rock the boat. Well, Jesus, the boat needing rocking, if you look at what happened up there in [Newtown] with that nutcase.”

Mr. Shays, the last moderate Republican U.S. House member in all of New England, echoed Mr. Weicker ardent feelings: “Our party is so hurting. You don't let one group determine who a candidate should be when gun control is a non-existent issue compared to what our state is faced with. We're losing jobs and we're losing wealth."

Both Mr. Weicker and Mr. Shays thought former Republican Party state Senate leader John McKinney would have made a more formidable candidate than Tom Foley. When Mr. McKinney lacked a sufficient number of delegate votes at the Republican Party nominating convention to continue his gubernatorial candidacy, Mr. Foley, it was rumored, made certain that he received a sufficient number of cross-over votes to continue his campaign.

It simply is not true that the Republican nominating convention had been captured by the NRA. Mr. McKinney more likely was voted down by the convention because he was perceived to be a creature of the legislature. Mr. Foley had run against Mr. Malloy previously, losing by a very narrow margin, and it would have been awkward for the Republican convention not to have affirmed a second run. The notion that the NRA is directing the tiller of the state Republican Party is part of the political mythos created by the National Democratic Party machine, which is at least as progressive as Mr. Weicker, if not more so. Grownup Republicans who have the best interests of their party at heart will not fall for the imposture. But then they are not quite as susceptible to Democratic campaign propaganda as are most members of Connecticut’s left of center media. Dangle a hook with a left of center worm on it before the lips of Connecticut’s media, which has too many friends among the state’s hegemonic Democratic Party machine, and they will lap it up like candy. It was Joseph Pulitzer, after whom the Pulitzer Prize is named, who memorably said “A newspaper should have no friends.”

Mr. Weicker and Mr. Shays do, however, raise an important question: Where have all the moderates, both Republicans and Democrats, gone? One is tempted to reply in the words of the old Pete Seegar folk song -- “gone to graveyards, everyone.” The “moderate” in modern politics is deader than the Foley campaign. All the moderate Republican members of Connecticut’s U.S. Congressional delegation, which once included Nancy Johnson, Rob Simmons and Chris Shays – have been replaced by progressive Democrats, and they were not dislodged because they were proponents of the NRA. They were dislodged because they were Republican moderates thrown out on their tails by a resurgent progressivism.

Rob Simmons -- who ought not to be lumped in among gun averse politicians that regularly and shamelessly pander to the anti-NRA crowd – would have made a much better Republican candidate for governor than either Mr. Weicker or Mr. Foley. Anti-NRAism has become the fetish of the left, and Mr. Simmons’ real service as a Colonel in the U.S. Marines during a real shooting war, Vietnam, has inoculated him permanently against such stupid fables. As a candidate for governor, Mr. Simmons would not have carried with him into a gubernatorial campaign the taint of having been a creature of a state legislature that had deprived Connecticut of its character as a prudent tax and regulation averse state. Mr. Weicker is more than the father of the state income tax: He is the Grand Seigneur of a budget that has tripled on the tax and spending side within the space of three governors and, as such, should not be offering advice to a party poised to embrace more modest governance.

The Republican Party in Connecticut is dying because it is poor and out of power. It is poor because campaign financing regulations divert campaign funds from parties to people, usually deathless progressive incumbents. It is out of power because it is timid and too moderate at time when progressives are at their weakest, at least nationally.  In a political campaign, you cannot beat something with nothing; you cannot beat someone with no one.

If Connecticut’s Republican Party were really smart, party members would begin today to groom Rob Simmons as Republican Party candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2016. Mr. Simmons is not gun-phobic; he is not afraid to fight the good fight; unlike Mr. Weicker, he is tied by strong bonds of affection to his party; and Mr. Simmons is a real marine who, unlike present U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal, fought in a hot war, while Mr. Blumenthal was passing out teddy bears to children in Washington D.C., falsely claiming later,on numerous occasions, that he was a veteran of the Vietnam War.

If these remarks seem to some a prelude to a movement to draft Mr. Simmons to run against Mr. Blumenthal, I can only plead guilty. Mr. Blumenthal, however, is among the half dozen richest members of the U.S. Congress, and the state Republican Party is the poor cousin of the major parties. Where, then, will Mr. Simmons get the money to wage a creditable campaign?

Surely, Linda McMahon is not tapped out. Even Mr. Weicker, a redundantly rich veteran who served both in the U.S. Army during the Korean War and on the board of World Wide Wrestling (WWW), might be induced to contribute to a Simmons campaign for the U.S. Senate which, the former Republican U.S. Senator will be happy to know, has now fallen into Republican hands. The governor of Massachusetts is a Republican. Mr. Simmons was, after all, one of the moderate members of Connecticut’s U.S. Congressional delegation washed overboard by the progressive tsunami that now appears to be receding everywhere but in super blue Connecticut.

Comments

peter brush said…
Back-to-back losses by Tom Foley, who bore the brunt of attack ads by gun-control advocates over his endorsement by the state's largest Second Amendment group, left many inside the party second-guessing its choice to be the nominee for governor
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Speaking as a paleo-con tea-bagger, I've had occasion to vote for Shays,and I voted for McKinney in the primary against Foley. I do think McKinney would have been a better candidate, but not because of guns. I gave Weicker in his limo the finger at close range back circa 1993, and am not sure who is more loathsome, Lowell or Dannel.

The idea that Foley lost because of the gun issue may be true, but it strikes me as unlikely. Foley was explicitly non-activist on the issue, saying only that he'd sign any repeal the Democrat-controlled legislature might put on his desk. That he was endorsed by the gun lobby says only that it was opposed to the author of the idiotic new law and opposed to his authoring any further idiotic laws in that direction.
Why did the electorate go with Malloy again? As the "Register" points out by quoting a pollster, his fiscal management, his taxing and spending, is very unpopular with the populace; and the people don't like it, either. “Connecticut voters say Gov. Dannel Malloy is a good man to have in a crisis,” Douglas Schwartz, director of the Quinnipiac Poll, said at the time. “On the day-to-day issues of governing, such as budget, taxes and the economy, he gets failing grades.” Reading the rest of the paper's editorial sheds little light on why Malloy should have gotten a second term. But, since the State is headed for a crisis (created by decades of ineffective-yet-expensive liberal programs), maybe the Malloyalistas wanted a guy they perceive to be a good a smart and courageous crisis manager.
I can't understand the moonbat mind; who can? You are right about how to connect with the more or less sane independent/moderate voters; less timid rhetoric pushing a less moderate agenda demonstrably productive of producing a healthier polity and economy. I bet Scott Walker or John Kasich could win here.
mccommas said…
Shays McKinney and Weicker are RINOs (and Shays and Weicker are sore losers to boot). I couldn't care less what they have to say about anything.

Simmons has made some very bad calls (Partial Birth Abortion, McCain-FalseGold, voting for Jimmy Carter and later admitting it on his congressional stationary) but I would not put him in the same category. I have thought all along he was waiting to take our Faux Vietnam Veteran on again in 2016. As Ann Coulter has said, Simmons is as good as Connecticut Republicans are ever going to get.

As for Tom Foley, he was a good candidate who almost won twice. Shame on those who fell for the class envy tactics for the scoundrel that did win. I thank him for his service to country.

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

H. L. Mencken
A Little Book in C major (1916)
mccommas said…
-- And what of the Democrat moderates? They are all Socialists now. You don't hear anything about that in the press.
Don Pesci said…
“Reading the rest of the paper's editorial sheds little light on why Malloy should have gotten a second term.”
That’s right. Most editorial supporting Malloy were of that kind, surrounded by qualifiers that would disqualify someone less energetic. If one cannot approve of the Marquis DeSade’s morals, one may at least compliment him on his energy.
peter brush said…
Marquis DeSade
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The New England Dems may be said to have wicked energy. But, their policies are not as coherent as Mr. DeSade's. He got what he wanted. The progressives have seen for decades now that their policies are universal failures not only failing to deliver on promises of social justice but also ruining the culture and the economy. This is why the Dems are also not as intellectually honest as the Marquis in presenting their perversions for sale to the demos. What if DeSade had to put up with elections every four years?

What gets me about the editorial boards is that they seem to think that the elections have nothing to do with decades long agendas of the political parties. This self-bamboozling is a major achievement in Connecticut where one party has dominated for decades. The press acts as if the Democrats win all those elections not because of their ideology, but because their candidates have simply been that good. Are liberal states from California to Illinois to New York running out of money even as they ruin their business climates? Not if the open-minded follow-the-science editorial boards don't look.
Unknown said…
If it wasn't for my job, I would leave this godforsaken state for good. Only here many so called Republicans vote for a bill greatly infringing on the 2nd Amendment! With Republicans like that, the DemocRATS do not need to win this state.
Unknown said…
If it wasn't for my job, I would leave this godforsaken state for good. Only here many so called Republicans vote for a bill greatly infringing on the 2nd Amendment! With Republicans like that, the DemocRATS do not need to win this state.
Unknown said…
If it wasn't for my job, I would leave this godforsaken state for good. Only here many so called Republicans vote for a bill greatly infringing on the 2nd Amendment! With Republicans like that, the DemocRATS do not need to win this state.

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