[EL] Jeb's Non-Campaign "Honesty Problem" is not a Problem. It is not Dishonest
David A. Holtzman
David at HoltzmanLaw.com
Wed Apr 22 19:05:52 PDT 2015
Sorry about that.I thought exceeding the $5,000 expenditure threshold
brought you into a “testing the waters” status, but I see now that it
brings you into “candidate” status. (It only applies if the expenditure
is to influence a federal election, rather than to help you decide
whether to enter a race).
Also, it’s nice to see that disclosure requirements don’t apply if you
don’t decide to run.(Of course I don’t think they should apply if you
don’t win.)But I do see significant compliance costs and burdens (data
gathering, recordkeeping, donation limit policing) even in that case,
under the rules I see now.
I don’t like those costs and burdens partly because I really would like
to broaden the field of potential candidates, not just for president, to
more “everyday Americans” (sorry, Mrs. Clinton), including those who got
the political bug early on, as schoolkids.
For “candidate” status, I think the focus should be on whether you’ve
filed the paperwork to become a candidate, which under the definition of
course does make you a candidate even if you haven’t raised or spent
$5,000. I hope I can be forgiven for bringing up the idea of Thought
Police.Even Paul (on p. 39 of his CLC report
<http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/sites/default/files/Testing_the_Waters_and_the_Big_Lie_2.19.15.pdf>)
raises the question, “What happens if an individual makes a decision,
but does not share that decision with others—or at least not with anyone
who will break the candidate’s confidence?”
- dah
p.s. Measuring something can change it.I sense that people are concerned
about pre-candidacy activities which can change public sentiment.Polling
can push.Message testing can affect a future election, that’s true.Maybe
it would be a good idea to move up the filing deadline to so the public
can find out who’s running earlier, while also limiting entry to
official “candidate” status to the same day as the deadline.That way we
would have a clear demarcation.But decreeing that the next election has
started just weeks after the last one, when voters will not actually
vote until years later, is a bit much.
I know it’s crazy, but people really do start running for president many
years in advance (e.g., LBJ; see Caro).And for lesser offices too.Around
here, just interviewing to be chief of staff for a newly-elected
official is likely to mean you’re seeking to be the official’s successor
8 or 12 years later.Folks are testing the waters every day.How soon,
really, do you want their regulation as potential candidates to begin?
p.p.s. A curious thing about the federal definition of “candidate”
status [on p. 31 of Paul’s CLC report
<http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/sites/default/files/Testing_the_Waters_and_the_Big_Lie_2.19.15.pdf>,
and discussed on p. 32 (expenditures are defined as spending “for the
purpose of influencing *any* election for Federal office”)] is that it
might be read to make you deemed to be a “candidate” (“deemed to seek
nomination for election, or election”) even if you’re just spending
money trying to help or hurt someone else’s election.For the purpose of
the “candidate” definition, I’m sure commonsense limits that to spending
on one’s own election.It could have been drafted better.
p.p.p.s. That definition reminds me, in my Congressional District’s
last contest, a large number of people filed the paperwork and got on
the ballot for the House seat.Doing so triggers a requirement under the
federal Ethics in Government Act to disclose personal and some family
finances by filing something with the Clerk of the House.But about half
of them didn’t file.This could be because they were taking advantage of
the House’s limiting application of the law to candidates who meet the
money part of the definition:
“Individuals are required to file an FD [financial disclosure]
Statement once they “qualify” as a candidate by
*/raising or spending more than $5,000 /*in a
campaign for election to the House of
Representatives. If you receive a notice to file a
Statement before you have raised or spent more
than $5,000 on the campaign, you should notify
the Clerk of the House /in writing or through the
electronic filing system /that the campaign has not
yet crossed the $5,000 threshold.”
(http://ethics.house.gov/sites/ethics.house.gov/files/Reduced%2087-542%20New%204-25-2014.pdf,
p. 3, downloaded from http://clerk.house.gov/public_disc/financial.aspx)
I’m not sure the House had the authority to do that.The House limitation
disregards or disrespects some candidates, and gives credence to the
notion that money is the be-all and end-all of politics.
And it lets some candidates-in-fact escape scrutiny applied to other
candidates.In my district, un-scrutinized candidates on the ballot (some
of whom might have been dissuaded from running if they thought they had
to comply with the financial disclosure requirement) may have siphoned
votes from other candidates.A Republican somehow got into the top-two
runoff in a heavily Democratic district.
On 4/22/2015 2:09 PM, Paul Ryan wrote:
>
> Perhaps the “testing the waters” stuff sounds crazy because you
> misunderstand the actual requirements of current law. The kid in your
> hypo doesn’t “become[] a lawbreaker upon reaching presidential age,
> and possibly before.” The disclosure requirements don’t kick in
> unless and until a person actually becomes a candidate. And someone
> who’s testing the waters is permitted to spend as much of their own
> money to pay for those exploratory activities as they wish. At this
> point, I’ll venture to guess that my views (and CLC’s views) regarding
> “testing the waters” are well known by anyone who cares to know them.
> I’m not going to spend time recapitulating my white paper and CLC’s
> complaints via the listserv. The activities we’re complaining about
> have nothing to do with kids and school assemblies and therapy. We’re
> talking about career politicians who have announced to the world that
> they’re exploring presidential campaigns, who have set up new
> political organizations, who have raised millions of dollars for these
> political organizations in the first quarter of the 2016 presidential
> cycle, who have traveled repeatedly to Iowa and New Hampshire and
> South Carolina during the first quarter of the 2016 presidential
> election cycle, who have assembled campaign staffs of veteran
> political professionals, etc.
>
> What sounds crazy to me is analogizing these prospective/actual
> candidates to “a girl or boy [who] tells a school assembly, “When I
> grow up I want to be President of the United States.” Yep, that’s
> what sounds crazy.
>
> /Paul Seamus Ryan/
>
> /Senior Counsel/
>
> /The Campaign Legal Center, Recipient of the 2014 MacArthur Award for
> Creative and Effective Institutions
> <http://www.macfound.org/maceirecipients/79/>/
>
> /Ph. (202) 736-2200 ext. 222/
>
> /Mobile Ph. (202) 262-7315/
>
> /Follow me on Twitter @ThePaulSRyan <https://twitter.com/ThePaulSRyan>/
>
> /And follow CLC @//CampaignLegal <http://bit.ly/j8Q1bg>///
>
> *From:*law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
> [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] *On Behalf Of
> *David A. Holtzman
> *Sent:* Wednesday, April 22, 2015 4:06 AM
> *To:* [EL]
> *Subject:* Re: [EL] Jeb's Non-Campaign "Honesty Problem" is not a
> Problem. It is not Dishonest
>
> This “testing the waters” stuff sounds crazy. I skimmed the CLC
> material. The “waters” are becoming quicksand.
>
> When a girl or boy tells a school assembly, “When I grow up I want to
> be President of the United States”, apparently that is of concern
> under federal law. And if the kid grows up and pays for undisclosed
> private therapy costing >$5,000+ every 4 years, always asking, “Should
> I run?” (Should I “become a candidate”?), the kid becomes a lawbreaker
> upon reaching presidential age, and possibly before.
>
> Must the kid really disclose the therapy?
> Or does the Constitution require a zone of privacy somewhere?
> [As David Brooks wrote recently
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/14/opinion/david-brooks-the-lost-language-of-privacy.html>,
> “Privacy is important for communities because there has to be a space
> where people with common affiliations can develop bonds of affection
> and trust. There has to be a boundary between us and them. Within that
> boundary, you look out for each other; you rally to support each
> other; you cut each other some slack; you share fierce common loyalties.”]
>
> Can the government really invade the confidentiality of private
> political polling by requiring disclosure of payments to polling
> firms? I doubt it could do that for market research in the business
> realm, especially if the subject matter of the research would be
> revealed. In both cases, there would be some shame involved in taking
> actions that suggest a consultant came up with unfavorable results.
> Pride could push improvident candidacies and marginal business
> ventures. It sounds perverse, but such rules would make people want
> to know the answer before they ask the question.
>
>
> The whole regulatory scheme here smacks of lurking Thought Police.
> (“Come with us, we know you are doing illegal research.”) Maybe it’s
> constitutional (as prior restraint of appearance of corruption?). But
> when a real prosecutor presents the case, how does something a
> politician said out loud, out of court, even on TV, count as
> admissible evidence, not inadmissible hearsay (is there a hearsay rule
> exception here)?
>
> Regulating pre-candidacies seems absurd; an instance of government
> overreach; a burden on political association; a tax benefiting a
> peculiar compliance industry; a scheme to dissuade newcomers.
>
> If you’re really so worried about people paying big bucks at
> fundraisers to get a pre-candidate’s ear, just move up the deadline
> for becoming a candidate.
>
> - dah
>
>
>
>
> On 4/21/2015 4:31 AM, Tyler Creighton wrote:
>
> 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
> <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 Fri, Apr 17, 2015 at 3:32 PM, Trevor Potter
> <tpotter at capdale.com <mailto: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><mailto: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 <tel: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><mailto: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><mailto: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><mailto: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><mailto: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><mailto:tyler at rethinkmedia.org
> <mailto:tyler at rethinkmedia.org>> | Media Associate
> ReThink Media<http://rethinkmedia.org> | (925) 548-2189
> <tel:%28925%29%20548-2189> 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><mailto: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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