[EL] Jeb's Non-Campaign "Honesty Problem" is not a Problem. It is not Dishonest

[Tyler Creighton]

Jeb does his best thinking at $100k/plate fundraisers and Republican
leadership summits in New Hampshire. He's headlined 47 fundraisers for his
super PAC
<http://politicalpartytime.org/blog/2015/04/20/pt-round-up-jeb-bush-has-five-fundraisers-baseball-brings-out-the-bucks-politicians-party-during-jazzfest-and-republican-presidential-hopefuls-head-to-iowa/>
since January.

*Tyler Creighton* | tyler at rethinkmedia.org  |  Media Associate
ReThink Media <http://rethinkmedia.org> | (925) 548-2189 mobile
@ReThinkDemocrcy <https://twitter.com/rethinkdemocrcy> | @ReThink_Media
<https://twitter.com/rethink_media> | @TylerCreighton
<http://www.twitter.com/tylercreighton>

On Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 3:32 PM, Trevor Potter <tpotter at capdale.com> wrote:

> Brad is of course right about " merely thinking" of running--it is the
> spending of funds for the hiring of staff and advisers, or polling, or
> travel to early primary/ caucus states, or other spending to explore
> whether to become a candidate, that triggers the " testing " regulations.
> Trevor Potter
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Apr 17, 2015, at 3:10 PM, Smith, Brad <BSmith at law.capital.edu<mailto:
> BSmith at law.capital.edu>> wrote:
>
> That's not really correct. Merely thinking about running doesn't require
> you to form a "testing the waters" committee. Otherwise, we'd have hundreds
> of the things.
>
>
> Bradley A. Smith
>
> Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault
>
> Professor of Law
>
> Capital University Law School
>
> 303 E. Broad St.
>
> Columbus, OH 43215
>
> 614.236.6317
>
> http://law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.aspx
>
> ________________________________
> From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:
> law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> [
> law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:
> law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu>] on behalf of Tyler
> Creighton [tyler at rethinkmedia.org<mailto:tyler at rethinkmedia.org>]
> Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2015 11:18 AM
> To: Steve Hoersting
> Cc: law-election at uci.edu<mailto:law-election at uci.edu>
> Subject: Re: [EL] Jeb's Non-Campaign "Honesty Problem" is not a Problem.
> It is not Dishonest
>
> He may not have decided yet, but as your post assumes he is in the process
> of "deciding" which comes with its own fundraising limits and campaign
> rules. That is where he is being dishonest and breaking the law, as the CLC
> explains here<
> http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/sites/default/files/Testing_the_Waters_and_the_Big_Lie_2.19.15.pdf>
> and here<
> http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/news/press-releases/fec-complaints-against-presidential-hopefuls-show-widespread-violations-total
> >.
>
> Tyler Creighton | tyler at rethinkmedia.org<mailto:tyler at rethinkmedia.org> |
> Media Associate
> ReThink Media<http://rethinkmedia.org> | (925) 548-2189 mobile
> @ReThinkDemocrcy<https://twitter.com/rethinkdemocrcy> | @ReThink_Media<
> https://twitter.com/rethink_media> | @TylerCreighton<
> http://www.twitter.com/tylercreighton>
>
> On Thu, Apr 16, 2015 at 11:03 AM, Steve Hoersting <hoersting at gmail.com
> <mailto:hoersting at gmail.com>> wrote:
> Adam Smith asks this question: "Does anyone actually believe Jeb Bush has
> not decided he is running for President?"
>
> The answer is a resounding Yes: I believe, and many others should
> "actually believe," Jeb Bush had not -- at the time he founded the Right to
> Rise Leadership PAC and perhaps still has not -- decided he is running for
> President.
>
> Someone once said the most interesting battle in Washington remains the
> battle between the Republican Establishment and the Republican Grassroots.
> The debate is foundational. It is not tonal, tactical or aesthetic. And Jeb
> Bush finds himself at its crossroads; caught in the very middle -- and Jeb
> must know it.
>
> (Sen. Mike Lee is another caught in the middle. Lee has just rewritten
> Randy Barnett's Restoring the Lost Constitution, yet co-authored a "reform
> conservative" tax package with Marco Rubio, chock-full of tax credits. Tax
> credits, as opposed to an equal quantity of tax cuts, allow the
> administrative state to direct where the money will go. And Washington's
> role in directing where resources will go is a pivotal question in the
> battle between the Grassroots and the Establishment).
>
> Consider what Jeb must know as he weighs his decison.
>
> There are those lining up against Jeb because they believe Jeb would mark
> a "third term" for G.W. Bush. They include Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Glenn
> Beck, Breitbart News, Red State, The Right Scoop, Reason, Heritage, and
> others.
>
> Here are those who prefer Marco Rubio to Jeb Bush because, ironically
> enough, Jeb Bush is not considered G.W. Bush-enough for them --
> specifically, that he is not neoconservative enough for them: Bloomberg
> View (Ramesh Ponnuru); New York Times (Ross Douthat & David Brooks);
> two-thirds of National Review (including Ramesh Ponnuru, Jonah Goldberg,
> Rahem Salam and Yuval Levin); The Weekly Standard (top to bottom): a
> majority of the Fox "All Stars;" half of the Washington Post opinion page;
> the American Enterprise Institute; the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
>
> *
>
> I think the most interesting vehicle created in the run-up to the 2016
> race is the new Leadership PAC. This vehicle is obviously built on the
> hybrid-PAC case, Carey v. FEC. And what has Jeb Bush done with it? Well, he
> has done exactly what is to be done with a PAC. He has traveled the
> country: to events, to meet-and-greets, to meetings with officeholders, to
> meetings with donors, and most importantly, I suggest to you, to meetings
> with opinion makers and think tank directors.
>
> My points are these:
>
> * Many are operating under the assumption that "Establishment" equals
> "Bush." It never has. Since at least 1998, Establishment means
> Neoconservative; these days, "Reform Conservative."
>
> * Jeb Bush is not dishonest, not by a long shot. He is perhaps the most
> honest aspirant in the 2016 field.
>
> * And, you bet your life, there is a real chance they won't want Jeb
> (something I wrote about 8 weeks ago, see below).
>
> Regrettably for the battle between the Establishment and Grassroots, and
> despite Adam's assertion to the contrary, there is a chance Jeb Bush "has
> not decided he is running for President."
>
> Why They Won’t Want Jeb
>
> Politics is a contest of philosophies—and ‘reform conservatives’ are the
> only team on the field.
>
> By STEPHEN M. HOERSTING
>
> Did you spot it? Last week's outpouring of headlines for presidential
> hopeful Marco Rubio? Seth Mendel in Commentary<
> https://www.commentarymagazine.com/topic/marco-rubio/>; Stephen Hayes in
> the Weekly Standard<
> http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/rubio-shines-koch-forum_824428.html>;
> Charles Krauthammer on Special Report with Bret Baier, crowning Senator
> Rubio a “dark horse” with the best chance to win the 2016 Republican
> nomination?
>
> Zogby Analytics offered<
> http://www.zogbyanalytics.com/news/549-zogby-analytics-gop-poll-mitt-leads-but-rubio-rises>
> some numbers to go with the speculation. The sample was a spare 223
> respondents, with a margin of error of nearly 7%—and Rubio polled three
> points behind Mitt Romney (now out of the running) and tied with former
> Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Still, Zogby’s headline and summary proclaimed a
> promising Rubio future.
>
> All the above headlines, but Zogby’s, came from the camp<
> http://news.yahoo.com/brain-trusts-behind-2016-gop-185300373.html;_ylt=AwrSyCNa.URTkEsALo3_wgt.>
> that long ago took Senator Rubio under its collective wing: “Reform
> conservatives,” a loose coalition of some of the brightest pundits and
> academics in America today. They include Yuval Levin of the Ethics and
> Public Policy Center, Arthur Brooks and many of his team at the American
> Enterprise Institute, scholars at the Manhattan Institute and editorial
> writers at the nation’s largest newspapers. Make no mistake: They are the
> Yankees, a franchise built on a Great Books<
> http://www.foreignlanguageexpertise.com/great_books.html> tradition, in a
> league of their own.
> But they are wrong about the role of government because they are wrong
> about an eternal debate. And I’m convinced the Mud Hens could take ‘em if
> the Hens would only take the field.
>
> Reform Conservatism in Broad Strokes
>
> Reform conservatives push policies from the moderate middle. They coexist
> comfortably with a redistributionist state when it redistributes for a good
> reason. And the reason informing all reform-conservative policies is the
> noble purpose of rebuilding the middle class. “Safety net” programs should
> be consolidated to yield efficiencies, but not scaled-back. Obamacare is to
> be replaced before repealed, on a model like “the Medicare Part D program,”
> because healthcare is a “right.”<
> http://www.omaha.com/opinion/editorials/michael-gerson-right-to-health-care-has-long-existed/article_86343f3d-b370-5323-8708-8ce068ab8d02.html>
> Gas taxes are to be increased—not to raise revenue, nor because climate
> threats are established science<
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-the-myth-of-settled-science/2014/02/20/c1f8d994-9a75-11e3-b931-0204122c514b_story.html>—but
> on moral grounds; to deter individuals from choosing “land yachts.”<
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-raise-the-gas-tax-a-lot/2015/01/08/5b4b407c-976f-11e4-aabd-d0b93ff613d5_story.html>
> Privatization is a policy scarcely seen.
>
> Reformers don’t just offer policies, they offer political advice. Their
> most talented analyst may be Henry Olsen, also of the EPPC, whose
> presentations to the Cato Institute<
> http://www.cato.org/events/republican-partys-civil-war-will-freedom-win?utm_source=Cato+Institute+Emails&utm_campaign=686e7af9c0-events&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_395878584c-686e7af9c0-141591434&mc_cid=686e7af9c0&mc_eid=61dada0cb7>,
> AEI or writings on “Jeb’s Prospects” in National Review<
> https://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/articles/395967/jebs-prospects> are
> nearly always the same. Olsen culls the latest polling data, finds in it a
> new American preference for transfer payments over market opportunity, and
> closes by concluding that any Republican presidential hopeful had better
> craft a platform that maintains the payments or increases them.
>
> But the policies only give the reader a flavor. Any can be jettisoned,
> here or there, to secure a larger vision; “a conservative governing
> vision,” one outlined by reform conservatives in a thoughtful tract called
> Room to Grow<
> http://ygnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Room-To-Grow.pdf>.
>
> The reform “conservative approach to public policy,” writes Yuval Levin,
> “points toward putting in place programs that enable a kind of bottom-up,
> incremental, continuous learning process rather than imposing wholesale
> solutions from above.” The wary reader will say that leaves open the
> possibility of imposing solutions from above, just not “wholesale.” And the
> reader is not far off. Reformers want the federal government to foster
> civil society, “that space between the individual and the state,” skipping
> over any objection that the space between individuals and the state is the
> province of individuals.
>
> Levin’s “approach to problem-solving … involves three steps,” each
> beginning with the letter E:
>
> experimentation (allowing service providers to try different ways of
> solving a problem), evaluation (enabling recipients or consumers of those
> services to decide which approaches work for them and which do not), and
> evolution (keeping those that work and dumping those that fail).
>
> The reformers’ vision is of an administrative state ready to synthesize a
> society Alexis de Toqueville knew as organic. New York Times columnist
> David Brooks offers an alarming emanation of this three-E approach—one
> Yuval Levin himself might publicly disavow—in a piece called The Big Debate<
> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/20/opinion/brooks-the-big-debate.html?_r=0>.
> Get it and read between the lines.
>
> Enter Jeb
>
> Where does former Florida Governor and presidential aspirant Jeb Bush fit
> into this governing vision?
>
> Well, he co-authored a book on immigration reform and has pledged support
> for Common Core. But the immigration book is co-authored by
> liberty-litigator Clint Bolick. Privatization, not reform, was the
> watchword of his successful tenure as Florida governor. And, although CNN<
> http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/03/politics/jeb-bush-2016-detroit/> pre-billed
> Jeb’s Wednesday speech to the Detroit Economic Club<
> http://www.c-span.org/video/?324174-1/former-florida-governor-jeb-bush-r-address-detroit>
> as a nod to reform conservatism, Bush told the Club that “standing against
> dynamism is a losing battle”— a theme that echoes his speech to thousands
> of attendees on January 23rd at the National Auto Dealers Association.
>
> There Jeb said, “Millions of Americans want to move forward in their
> lives—they want to rise—but they are losing hope.” Poor management isn’t
> the problem; it is the scope of the regulatory reach. “Far from spreading
> opportunity, our government gets in the way each and every day: another
> law, another tax, another fee or another regulation.” Washington has
> “created a complicated society on top of people’s aspirations. And today,
> in America, fewer and fewer people are rising up.”
>
> Rising up… Jeb borrowed the theme from Congressman Paul Ryan—“the Right to
> Rise”—and used it as the title for an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal more
> than a year ago and as the name for his leadership PAC. But the theme has
> been reviewed by reform conservatives and found wanting.
>
> What’s my evidence? The communications arc of Paul Ryan himself. In 2009,
> Paul Ryan said<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmW19uoyuO8>, “Ayn Rand,
> more than anyone else, did a fantastic job of defending the morality of
> capitalism; the morality of individualism.” In his bid for the vice
> presidency, Ryan said, “Our rights come from God, not government.” Later in
> the campaign, Ryan began showing signs of pressure: Okay, okay, I “totally
> reject” Rand’s defense of capitalism, he said, before adopting a
> communications strategy in the form of an innocuous question coined by
> Speaker Boehner: “Where are the jobs, Mr. President?” These days, Paul Ryan
> communicates far differently from his message in 2009. His latest book, The
> Way Forward, comes right out and says so: I am a reform conservative.
>
> What didn’t meet with reformers’ taste in Paul Ryan’s campaign will not
> woo them to Jeb’s. “Assisted to rise” may be a theme more to their liking,
> but a “right to rise,” it seems, they cannot abide.
>
> Erasing Aristotle’s Cultural Avatar
>
> And if smoke means fire, dropping the moral defender of individual rights
> from Republican talking points is a task worthy of follow-through: Paul
> Ryan hasn’t been the only Republican official invited to disparage Ayn
> Rand. Utah Sen. Mike Lee told<
> http://thefederalist.com/2013/12/12/hey-randians-theres-more-to-life-than-economics/>
> The Heritage Foundation that America is modeled more upon Norman Rockwell
> paintings than any character in The Fountainhead. Senate Leader Mitch
> McConnell journeyed to AEI to deliver a message<
> http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/mitch-mcconnell-populist-pitch> of his own two
> days after defeating Matt Bevin in the Kentucky Senate primary: Average
> Republican voters aren’t exactly do-it-yourselfers, like John Galt.
>
> That’s a lot of criticism—by authoritative voices, in prepared statements,
> from an awfully high perch—being paid the late author of a non-genre
> backlist whose last novel was published three generations ago. Why aren’t
> congressional leaders invited to distance themselves from Hemingway’s
> drinking, Nabakov’s pedophilia or Stephen King’s gore? Perhaps for reasons
> that might trouble good men like McConnell, Ryan and Lee, if true, and
> fully understood.
>
> Perhaps it is that none of the other novelists based their works on
> Aristotle’s epistemology<
> http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Objectivist-Epistemology-Expanded-Second-ebook/dp/B002OSXD8C/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1422545653&sr=1-1&keywords=introduction+to+objectivist+epistemology&pebp=1422545657274&peasin=B002OSXD8C>.
> None has strong ties to St. Thomas Aquinas’s rediscovery of Aristotle; a
> rediscovery that lifted humanity out of a Dark Age ruled by Plato’s
> philosopher kings. No popular novelists but Rand (and Umberto Eco<
> http://www.amazon.com/Name-Rose-Blu-ray-Sean-Connery/dp/B004YCKJ74/ref=sr_1_1_twi_2_twi_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1422561428&sr=1-1&keywords=the+name+of+the+rose+dvd>)
> spend much time explaining how a rediscovered Aristotle led Isaac Newton to
> a scientific method that birthed The Age of Enlightenment—1750 to 1850—the
> century that bookends such achievements as occurred in 1776 (the
> Declaration), 1789 (the Constitution) and 1791 (the Bill of Rights).
>
> Indeed, in their book Neoconservatism—which no practitioner of politics
> can afford to ignore—Clemson University Professor C. Bradley Thompson and
> Yaron Brook have a chapter titled, “The Long Trek Back to Plato.” And
> “[n]ever<
> https://books.google.com/books?id=Apj1tT3emAIC&pg=PA171&lpg=PA171&dq=Karl+Popper+was+a+man+more+in+earnest+in+his+hostility+to+the+individual&source=bl&ots=PAxp_oULBg&sig=jLifcuBX8WTrbts6eCUWNdgRmk0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XZHKVJbqIcW-ggTCgIP4Cg&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Karl%20Popper%20was%20a%20man%20more%20in%20earnest%20in%20his%20hostility%20to%20the%20individual&f=false>…was
> a man more in earnest in his hostility to the individual” than Plato, at
> least according to Karl Popper, who wrote The Open Society and Its Enemies
> after escaping Europe during World War II.
>
> Neoconservatism isn’t merely a foreign policy persuasion and it didn’t go
> out with the G. W. Bush Administration; it fits comfortably within that
> brand of conservatism championed by reformers. As recently as January 26,
> Weekly Standard editor William Kristol—who has been talking down<
> http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3142245/posts> a Bush-Clinton
> presidential race—praised<
> http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/articles/men-chests_823828.html> the
> late scholars Walter Berns and Harry Jaffa for their appreciation of “the
> problem identified by Leo Strauss in Natural Right and History” and of “the
> weaknesses of the modern accounts of freedom.” Kristol’s piece is brisk,
> moving, and commands agreement; written as it is against the backdrop of
> President Obama’s and British Prime Minister David Cameron’s failure to
> turn the tide of radical Islamic terrorism. But if you’re nonetheless
> wondering what the “weaknesses” are in “accounts of freedom,” or why
> Professor Strauss used the singular Natural Right in his title and not the
> plural Natural Rights, as Locke and Jefferson were accustomed to using, get
> Professor Thompson’s book<
> http://www.amazon.com/Neoconservatism-Obituary-C-Bradley-Thompson/dp/1594518319/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1422704740&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=thompson+neoconservativism+obituary>
> and read it.
>
> Competing Statements …
>
> Senator Ted Cruz uttered two remarkable sentences in a speech<
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWR2MeQMmM8> sponsored by Heritage Action
> early this year. His first sentence proffers a working hypothesis: “This
> town is fundamentally corrupt.” The hypothesis is that donors, lobbyists,
> consultants and cronies are driving the agenda and presidential primary
> process in Washington D.C.
>
> Careful: Talk like that may resuscitate the campaign laws that had kept
> grassroots conservatives in the wilderness pre-SpeechNow. And Cruz should
> consider this: If congressional leadership on the right and left are now
> convinced it is morally proper to manage the economic incentives of
> middle-class Americans from Washington—whether “wholesale” or by the three
> Es—then widespread adoption of his corruption hypothesis can result in only
> one policy outcome: sacrificing the businessman’s right to defend himself;
> sacrificing the First Amendment right to petition the government.
>
> But Cruz’s hypothesis misses a more important factor. What donors think is
> driven mostly by pundits and editorials. Reformer Ross Douthat crippled<
> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/18/opinion/sunday/ross-douthat-mitt-the-insurgent.html>
> Mitt Romney’s third attempt as much any fight for donors. Governor Mike
> Huckabee is poised to dilute the grassroots vote while writers Hayes and
> Krauthammer are disposed to slowing Jeb’s rise with silence or faint
> praise. And here is the point: If such moves are successful, a major shift
> in the primary running will have occurred. Yet no one foresees donors,
> consultants and lobbyists holding-things-up. They will line-up comfortably
> behind Marco Rubio: Consultants and lobbyists, the old saying goes, “will
> be for what will be.”
>
> That is why Cruz’s second statement is far more interesting: “There are
> some people in this town who will intone in gravelly voices, ‘We need to
> get things done.’” Getting things done, of course, is the Establishment’s
> euphemism for Republicans “governing”<
> http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/10/15/the-real-obamacare-fight-is-between-establishment-republicans-and-the-tea-party/>
> from Capitol Hill rather than checking President Obama. The gravelly voice
> Cruz hears is the ubiquitous echo of Leo Strauss, echoing through the wise,
> late Irving Kristol, who dedicated his life to a brand of Republican
> politics now coming into its own with reform conservatism. It is the
> gravelly voice of the leading All Stars on the Fox News Channel since its
> inception, and the gravelly voice of reform conservative scholars
> counseling “moderation” and “prudence” to Republican congressmen and
> women—the only coequal officers empowered to slow a galloping Executive
> overreach. “The courts,” for their part, writes reformer Ramesh Ponnuru,
> “rightly treat the balance of power between the legislative and executive
> branches … as political questions.”
>
> … And Competing Revolutions, differing on an Eternal Debate
>
> What’s more, Cruz’s second statement raises the $64,000 conundrum: Is the
> gulf between the Establishment and Grassroots a matter of tactics or
> philosophy?
>
> Michael Needham, who hosted Senator Cruz that day at Heritage Action, took
> recently to the pages of National Affairs<
> http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/building-a-real-reform-mandate>,
> a quarterly journal edited by Yuval Levin. Needham’s piece takes in good
> faith the Establishment’s excuse for inertia—tactics, not substance—and
> argues effectively to his cautious brethren why the Grassroots’ tactics are
> sound: the state is growing and time is short. But Needham will come to see
> that the differences between the two coalitions are substantive, or more
> precisely, philosophical. Needham’s objective is to resuscitate the
> American Revolution of 1776—at least to slow the train; to return at least
> to such days as Speaker Gingrich effectively checking the Clinton
> Administration—when budgets were balanced and the economy roaring. Needham
> well understands that liberty, like an archway, is strengthened by the
> pushback of coequal and opposite forces.
>
> The reformers’ objective, however, is to cement the Judicial Revolution of
> 1937: “Reform conservatism,” writes Yuval Levin in Room to Grow,
>
> involves not a return to some fabled past, but a modernization of our
> antiquated, lumbering, bureaucratic, mid-twentieth century governing
> institutions that enables a leaner and more responsive twenty-first-century
> government to help a complex and diverse twenty-first century society
> solves its problems.
> (Emphasis added). And that means the administrative state.
>
> But the two revolutions cannot be reconciled, as Professor John Marini
> teaches in Imprimis<
> http://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/file/archives/pdf/2013_10_Imprimis.pdf>,
> and daily operations of the Obama Administration confirm. Either planners
> will be ridden-down by the rule of law—which entails engagement by
> coequals—or “Law [will] be replaced by Plan.”<
> http://www.amazon.com/Cave-Light-Aristotle-Struggle-Civilization-ebook/dp/B003EY7JG2/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1422704277&sr=1-1&keywords=the+cave+and+the+light&pebp=1422704279820&peasin=B003EY7JG2
> >
> Senator Cruz should focus less on donors and consider a more likely
> hypothesis: Today’s Republican leaders repeatedly vote Moderate because
> their philosophical backers are truly hard core. Philosophy, far more than
> funding, moves the world.
>
> Philosophy shapes competing visions of regulatory structure because it
> derives from an eternal debate on the fundamental functioning of the human
> mind—a debate between St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine, Locke and
> Hobbes, through Jefferson and Hamilton, Goldwater and Rockefeller, and
> these days raging between Will and Krauthammer, and ex-administration
> officials Levin<
> http://www.amazon.com/Ameritopia-Unmaking-Mark-R-Levin-ebook/dp/B005O2YWVC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422703316&sr=8-1&keywords=levin+ameritopia&pebp=1422703322149&peasin=B005O2YWVC>
> and Levin: Is a man to have his liberty respected because, in the
> overwhelming majority of circumstances, he can govern his day-to-day
> affairs? Or is he entitled to an officious compassion because he can’t?
>
> It’s Time to Pivot
>
> In Sons of Wichita, Daniel Schulman credits philanthropist Charles Koch
> (and Koch’s political advisors) with this saying (though the words are
> Schulman’s): “Politicians are merely vessels for the ideas you fill them
> with[;] stage actors working off a script produced by the nation’s
> intellectual class.” Reform conservatives understand this maxim better than
> any coalition battling under the Republican banner, and have moved
> assiduously to provide Republican leaders with a “governing vision.” All
> the other coalitions are pushing piecemeal policy prescriptions to
> politicians uncertain of what the overall objective is or why they’re there.
>
> But as Rush Limbaugh warned the CPAC conference in 2009, in the long run
> an integrated philosophy defeats even the best public policy proposals.
> Daily we are seeing evidence of Limbaugh’s warning. Yet the counterargument
> is always put to the officeholders, never to their backers in the punditry
> or intellectual class.
>
> Competing coalitions need to pivot; to dissect reform conservatism and
> repeatedly make plain its friction with the Founding; to rekindle the
> eternal debate. Do that and Republican leaders will return to them in time.
>
> Caring Won’t Suffice
>
> By all available evidence, Jeb Bush cares deeply about the unemployed, the
> underemployed and the unemployable. And, on matters of political
> philosophy, he’s no empty vessel, but his own man—with his ‘best foot’
> anchored in Enlightenment individualism. Upon reflection, he has made a
> choice in the eternal debate. His solution for an ailing America is to
> re-embrace The Right to Rise for able-bodied individuals; to scale back the
> administrative state and set free civil society—not to benevolently usurp
> the latter by prudently managing the former.
>
> This will be his undoing, as far as reform conservatives are concerned, as
> long as Marco Rubio remains a viable presidential contender (though other
> reasons will be given). For reform conservatives, too, have chosen sides in
> the eternal debate and are betting Marco Rubio’s political philosophy is a
> vessel with substantial space to fill. Or, putting it into words they might
> prefer the public to hear, reform conservatives see Rubio’s philosophy as
> the one with “room to grow.”
>
> And, to their eternal way of thinking, where better to grow than in office?
>
> Heads up, Marco Rubio. They’re “looking at you.”<
> http://freebeacon.com/politics/the-problem-with-reform-conservatism/>
>
> Stephen M. Hoersting is former general counsel to the National Republican
> Senatorial Committee and of counsel to the Republican National Committee in
> McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission.
>
>
>
>
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