NewMajority.com has rebranded …

… to FrumForum.com.

From the link, David Frum’s take on the move:

From the time we launched the New Majority site, we have had to cope with a problem with our name. Simply put, there are a lot of “New Majorities” out there. There’s one down the road in Virginia, another at the New World Foundation, a conservative 501c4 here, a liberal one there. All this generated serious confusion, but the worst was with the best known New Majority of them all, TheNewMajority in California, because their mission and ours so closely overlapped. That overlap was leading to very unnecessary conflict with people who wanted many of the same reforms that we did.

The best solution seemed to be: a change of name. But to what?

GOP rump happy to lose senate seat

Nothing from the bitter fringe of what used to be the Grand Old Party — and is now pretty much old, cranky folks who don’t even understand the meaning of political conservatism — would surprise me at this point.

The overall reaction to Arlen Specter switching sides of the aisle? Happy to see that backstabbing RINO go.

Never mind he gives the Democrats a filibuster-proof Senate majority, and a full 60 vote majority as soon as Franken is seated from Minnesota. And for anyone who doesn’t get that yet, Franken won. Coleman is spinning his wheels, but he’s not getting that Senate seat. Not by the courts, and certainly not by a new election now that that Minnesota public really, really dislikes him.

David Frum laments the loss of Specter, but check out the comments at NewMajority on his post. This is GREAT day for the Republican Party! Er, folks, not so much.

From the link (and do scroll down to the comments):

The Specter defection is too severe a catastrophe to qualify as a “wake-up call.” His defection is the thing we needed the wake-up call to warn us against! For a long time, the loudest and most powerful voices in the conservative world have told us that people like Specter aren’t real Republicans – that they don’t belong in the party. Now he’s gone, and with him the last Republican leverage within any of the elected branches of government.

For years, many in the conservative world have wished for an ideologically purer GOP. Their wish has been granted. Happy?

Let’s take this moment to nail some colors to the mast. I submit it is better for conservatives to have 60% sway within a majority party than to have 100% control of a minority party. And until and unless there is an honored place made in the Republican party for people who think like Arlen Specter, we will remain a minority party.

Here’s one sample comment from “conservative08:”

Good riddance to this clown. And any other “Republicans” that vote like moderate Democrats. These out of touch, crusty beltway types are exactly the reason Republicans have lost the past two elections.

Someone who voted for a trillion dollar stimulus package is somehow the answer for a Republican resurgence? Give me a break.

He’s a joke. And so are so many of the other losers who have spent like Democrats. Bye.

Um, spent like Democrats? How about Bush 43’s eight years of fiscal conservatism. Oh yeah, that didn’t happen and practically no one on the right let out one tiny peep in protest over the entire two terms. Hypocrisy is ugly, and very sad coming from a dying political party.

The Internet and the 21st century electorate

This is a post I crafted for NewMajority around three months ago. It never ran, and I’m actually glad since some of my observations about partisan comment sections seem to have infected Frum’s attempt to refocus the conservative political movement.

I’m blockquoting the entire piece since it’s somewhat dated today:

The World Wide Web has changed pretty much every aspect of our lives in some fashion, and politics is no exception. For all the new sources of political commentary, access to unvarnished polling data for anyone with an Internet connection and other changes in how politics is conducted, two really stand out to me – online contributions and user communities on partisan websites.

Politics lives on donations. A great portion are large chunks of money from major donors. The GOP still has this in spades. Another set of donations is small donor contributions from a wide variety of sources, a group of contributors who typically represent, hopefully, a broad base of support. Obama completely rewrote the book on small donor contributions this election cycle, very largely based on online contributions.

Here’s a blog post-mortem of mine from November:

After deftly harnessing the web during the long campaign, it’s expected the Obama administration will continue its groundbreaking political use of the internet. During the campaign Obama garnered a half a billion dollars from over 3 million donors and utilized the net for all manner of organization (you can find a blog post of mine on his campaign’s tech here.)

From the first link:

With the campaign having learned what kinds of results you get from social-networking sites, viral videos, email lists, and text-messaging, it’s not hard to imagine that this administration will operate far differently than its predecessors. Sure, it’s not clear what shape it will take: how much YouTube, how much social-networking, how many email blasts from the White House or from proxies. Getting it right will be tricky. But clearly, Obama’s recent “radio address” on YouTube is a taste of things to come. I spoke yesterday with Thomas Gensemer, managing partner of Blue State Digital, the company that set up the social networking tools for the campaign (and which supplied the numbers above). He said: “My biggest outsider claim is this: The way the campaign helped inform critical decision-makers of the value of digital assets, means [these assets] will have a significant role in the ongoing administration.”

Beyond all the technology the Obama campaign harnessed, it’s worth repeating his small contribution base – half a billion dollars from over three million donors. One thing to take away this number is it doesn’t reflect a bunch of donors maxing out their allowed contributions in one pop. These are small donors who regularly gave samll amounts — $10 here, $50 there – in response to requests from the campaign. That is a powerful donor base.

The second area where the Internet has truly changed the electorate can be found on the forums, comment sections and user communities of partisan websites. I’m sure you’ve read about the “wing nuts” on the right and the “moon bats” or “nut roots” on the left. The latter is a takeoff from Netroots, the online political activism arm of the left.

The change these groups bring is the tone from both the right and the left. Much more raw, much more virulently partisan and much more attacking. If these sites are all you read, you’d think all political discourse in the U.S. has devolved into little more than petty spats and rumor-mongering. My take is the overall electorate is pretty sane and even-headed, whether partisan, or not. The net simply gives the fringe voice a very public, and loud, so-to-speak, outlet. At one point in time these voices might occasionally get a letter to the editor published in a local newspaper, but probably not all that often and the tone would be subject to editorial control.

Internet communities, particularly unmoderated forums and message boards, give this part of the electorate an unchecked outlet that reaches anyone online who chooses to visit the site and read the messages.

It’s empowering for the everyday voter, for certain, but the signal-to-noise level is so low I can’t help but wonder if the fringe of the electorate on both sides might not be having an inordinate effect on undecided and independent voters. Either through spreading baseless rumors – and both parties have been victims of this tactic – or through just distracting voters from the message the party is promoting.

I have to admit reading these forums offers a certain voyeuristic appeal, and culturally they are a fascinating phenomena. I’m just not too sure what value they are adding to political discourse.

Frum on the GOP and Limbaugh at Newsweek

David Frum has an excellent cover story at Newsweek on the ongoing “discussion” within the GOP on Limbaughism and the general state of conservatism. It’s a long-form piece, but well worth the time taken to read the entire article.

Frum is doing some great work at NewMajority.com, but his message is being shouted down by the lowest common denominator in the GOP.

I did a guest blog post in the early days of NewMajority back in late January, but have yet to follow-up. The initial plan was for me to provide a few posts a week. A spate of freelance work and a bout with the flu has kept me from keeping that schedule up right now. I do intend to continue contributing to NewMajority as long as Frum will have me, but I also have to admit I’m not sure I have a lot to add to the GOP debate given the current state of affairs.

My libertarian moderate message really isn’t part of a shouting match on exactly what the Republican Party should be going forward. Right now it looks like some sort of “pure” hard right politics that appeals to roughly a third (or more likely much less) of the electorate versus a political party interested in debating the subjects of the day and engaging all voters in some fashion. Depending on the outcome of this internecine conflict, the GOP will either no longer compete on a national scope or it will become a solid opposition party and hopefully inject ideas and policies into U.S. government.

The options are that stark and Frum gets it. Here’s his lede establishing his conservative and GOP bona fides. A laundry list necessary because the rabid right has idiotically decided Frum is just another RINO. Good move there guys. Try to alienate someone who is honestly seeking solutions instead of shouting at walls.

From the first link:

It wasn’t a fight I went looking for. On March 3, the popular radio host Mark Levin opened his show with an outburst (he always opens his show with an outburst): “There are people who have somehow claimed the conservative mantle … You don’t even know who they are … They’re so irrelevant … It’s time to name names …! The Canadian David Frum: where did this a-hole come from? … In the foxhole with other conservatives, you know what this jerk does? He keeps shooting us in the back … Hey, Frum: you’re a putz.”

Now, of course, Mark Levin knows perfectly well where I come from. We’ve known each other for years, had dinner together. I’m a conservative Republican, have been all my adult life. I volunteered for the Reagan campaign in 1980. I’ve attended every Republican convention since 1988. I was president of the Federalist Society chapter at my law school, worked on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal and wrote speeches for President Bush—not the “Read My Lips” Bush, the “Axis of Evil” Bush. I served on the Giuliani campaign in 2008 and voted for John McCain in November. I supported the Iraq War and (although I feel kind of silly about it in retrospect) the impeachment of Bill Clinton. I could go on, but you get the idea.

I mention all this not because I expect you to be fascinated with my life story, but to establish some bona fides. In the conservative world, we have a tendency to dismiss unwelcome realities. When one of us looks up and murmurs, “Hey, guys, there seems to be an avalanche heading our way,” the others tend to shrug and say, he’s a “squish” or a RINO—Republican in Name Only.

Stimulus vote and the GOP

Whatever else you might want to say about the stimulus — and there’s plenty to say — the Republicans completely blew it with an idiotic “hard line” stand against the Obama administration’s plan.

A quick sample from the WSJ:

Many of the business tax provisions were added to the stimulus legislation in the Senate in an effort to attract Republican votes. President Barack Obama wants bipartisan support for the plan and was dealt a setback when no Republicans voted for the House version of the plan two weeks ago.

But when only three Republican senators voted for the Senate version of the bill Tuesday, Democrats slashed the business tax proposals in an effort to bring the total cost of the bill under $789 billion.

See what happened there? When the GOP thumbed its collective nose at the entire process and decided now is the time to take that long, long overdue fiscal stand, it found its ideas left in the bag. When you don’t participate in the conversation, it’s hard to complain when your input gets dumped.

This is not a winning strategy.

Here’s David Frum at NewMajority on the topic.

From the link:

The stimulus bill has passed Congress with almost no Republican votes: 3 in the Senate, 0 in the House.

Republicans hung tough, and the result is a bill that reflects Democratic goals – and pays off Democratic constituencies.

Probably that was the way the bill was going to turn out no matter what. If so, Republicans did not pay a big price for shunning the process.

But there’s a difference between “not paying a big price” and “winning an actual victory.”

These kinds of party line fights may energize Republicans in Congress and mobilize the dwindling Republican base. But in the aftermath, there is nothing but loss.

Between the changes to unemployment compensation – and Medicaid – and welfare – this bill adds up to the most important reshaping of the American welfare state since the middle 1960s. Republican views were not represented, Republican voices went unheard.

In consequence, some of the changes turned out worse than they had to (especially welfare) – and those changes that were positive (a federal subsidy to help laid-off workers continue to buy private-sector health insurance) are received by voters as purely Democratic achievements.

This might be …

… the single most stupid thing ever written about Sarah Palin. And that’s saying a lot.

From the NewMajority link:

She looks better every time the Democrats appoint another millionaire tax cheat who went to the right schools.

Until the apologists get off the snowbilly’s bus, the GOP is doomed at the ballot box. Image rehabilitation doesn’t even come into play here. Palin is electoral disaster and a punchline. The base she appeals to is tiny, and mostly hated, by everyone else who votes.

Obama’s power

David Frum made a great point today at NewMajority on the strength and confidence Obama has carried into the White House.

From the link:

In three cases, President Obama’s nominees have encountered potentially nomination-wrecking problems. Richardson withdrew, Geithner brushed past all objections, and to date anyway Daschle is benefiting from senatorial courtesy.

So: multiple sloppiness on the part of the Obama vetters? Not impossible, but unlikely. Richardson’s issue was common knowledge; Daschle volunteered the information about his tax difficulties.

The Obama administration went ahead anyway – even though Geithner’s and Daschle’s issues were at least as serious as those that blocked the confirmation of Linda Chavez in 2001 and Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood in 1993.

So why is Obama succeeding where Bush and Clinton failed?

It’s not just that President Obama has the votes in the Senate: Clinton and Bush both started with Senate majorities too. (50 votes plus the vice president in Bush’s case.)

It’s not just that he has the press on board: Clinton started with a favorable press too.

What Obama has that Clinton and Bush lacked is the self-confidence that comes from facing a thoroughly defeated opposition.

Frum analysis is on the money. I’m hoping Obama will make good use of this strength. I voted for him, but at the same time I have concerns any time one party controls the White House, Senate and the House.

I’m not even sure the GOP is offering a true opposition right now. It comes off as much more simple obstructionism than honestly engaging the debate on issues.

If this chart doesn’t wake the GOP up nothing will

Talk about a marginalized party. Whatever the base really is, it isn’t a wining coalition. This story at the New York Times and research from Gallup ought to be very, very sobering.

From the link:

Yesterday Gallup released a report on its survey of political party affiliation by voters at the state level. The results, depicted in the map above, show that only five states have a statistically significant majority of voters who identify themselves as Republicans. The data come from interviews last year with “more than 350,000 U.S. adults as part of Gallup Poll Daily tracking.”

Here’s the dirty truth from Gallup:

And here’s some analysis from David Frum at NewMajority.com, taken rom the NYT link:

David Frum at the NewMajority.com asks “Base? What base?”:

These are the numbers that make yesterday’s flexing of muscle by Rush Limbaugh over Georgia congressman Phil Gingery not merely ridiculous but actively dangerous. When Republicans line up behind Rush Limbaugh in this way, they are dividing the country 80-20 against themselves. Our supreme priority now has to be to reinvent ourselves as a pragmatic, inclusive, modern party of free enterprise and limited government. We have to relearn how to talk to moderates, independent, younger voters, educated voters, women – it’s a long list.

Instead, our congressmen talk to and about Rush Limbaugh like Old Bolsheviks praising Comrade Stalin at their show trials. Rush is right! We see eye to eye with Rush! There is no truth outside Rush!

My first NewMajority post

Here’s my first offering at NewMajority. The site is dedicated to bringing the GOP back around. I’m going to provide an independent voice coming from the “little l” libertarian stance, plus I’m a voter who votes for both parties with no compunction. Exactly the sort of voter the GOP needs to court to start winning elections again.

The site broke the story on Palin’s campaign clothes going undonated and sitting in plastic garbage bags at the RNC headquarters, and it’s funny because the comment section is already populated with the 20%-ers who will likely keep the party out of anything other than local office for a long-time coming.

I think the idea of NewMajority is great and I’m very pleased David Frum, the founder and editor, has given me the opportunity to contribute to the conversation. The site launched on Tuesday and it’s already embroiled in a bit of GOP controversy.

Regular readers of this blog wonder why I’d contribute to a blog dedicated to bringing the GOP back to prominence? It’s simple. I want at least two viable choices and no third party could hope to challenge the Democrats for many years. There’s just no coalition, organization or structure for that fight from any political party other than the Republicans. I also fear the GOP might just go the way of the Know-Nothings if the extreme edge isn’t sanded down a bit.

Given the opportunity, I’ll contribute to a left-leaning blog and challenge that group from the right. For NewMajority I’m doing just that, only from the other direction.

From my first NewMajority post:

Is it possible to be less than conservative on social issues and still be a part of the Republican coalition? Of course it is. Many voters, such as myself, vote GOP for the fiscal conservatism the party has traditionally espoused. The last several years has shaken that somewhat, but fiscal conservatives are not going to bail on the party for the sins of one administration.

Culturally, the public’s focus regarding the Republican Party is on the Religious Right and a series of hot-button topics such as abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research. One area that gets very little truck these days is civil liberties – particularly the notion that government ought to stay out of our lives. The notion that the individual knows best in terms of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Civil liberties is one area in which true conservatives and libertarians have been largely in agreement.

Palin’s campaign clothes at RNC headquarters

NewMajority.com (I’m to be a guest blogger at the site, but my first post hasn’t run yet in this wild and woolly first week for the new blog) broke a major story today — the clothes bought for Sarah Palinfor the campaign trail are sitting the Republican National Committee headquarters in garbage bags.

These are the infamous $150K in designer outfits for the vice-presidential nominee to wear while on the stump. They were to be donated to charity after the election. It looks like the Alaskan governor kept her end of the bargain and returned the clothing. The RNC, however, has dropped the ball completely.

From the link:

Despite the Republican National Committee’s promise to donate Sarah Palin’s $180,000 campaign wardrobe to charity, word has it the Alaska governor’s clothes remain stuffed in trash bags at RNC headquarters, NewMajority has learned.

While Palin followed through on her promise to return her controversial wardrobe after the election, it seems the RNC has not followed through on its promise to give most of the clothes away.

During the 2008 campaign, GOP vice presidential candidate Palin was pummeled with accusations that she had overspent on clothes for herself, and even for her family — down to baby Trig. Palin asserted at the time that the clothes belonged to the RNC. They were not her property and would be returned at the end of the campaign. A campaign spokeswoman backed up those claims, saying, “It was always the intent that the clothing go to a charitable purpose after the campaign.” It was also understood that those that had not been worn would be returned to the appropriate retailer; those that had been worn would be used for some other purpose, perhaps auctioned off for charity or to retire campaign debt.

NewMajority founder and editor, David Frum, added this on the big scoop for the fledgling website:

This story is not a story about Gov. Palin. In this matter, the former vice-presidential nominee did exactly the right thing. She promised to return the wardrobe at the end of the campaign, and she did return the wardrobe.

The story is about a dysfunctional party apparatus. Because of their own inability to act, the RNC has left Gov. Palin looking like a promise-breaker – and left everyone who donated to the McCain-Palin campaign feeling like a fool.

The rage in the donor community about the wardrobe is real and intense. Our party was gasping for funds in 2008. We could not afford to waste a dime. More to the point: not every Republican donor is rich. Many are people to whom the $200 or $500 or $1000 they give represents a real sacrifice. They need to know that their sacrifice has not been used frivolously. The RNC’s protracted delay in donating the clothes as promised raises a troubling question: Will our party be embarrassed by what those bags contain?

The right wing fights back against the far fringe

After the Palin veep picked proved to be an electoral disaster — and exposed a very ugly theocrat faction that before Bush 43 has always been coddled and marginalized. Now they seem to want blood of some sort. Right now that blood is taking form in the GOP brand. Beaten down, sullied and starting to rend where does the GOP go from here?

Well, there’s a lot of opposition to this electoral suicide. The American Conservative has fought against Bush 43 anti-conservatism for quite a while; a relatively new blog of young conservatives, Culture11, is seeking a new way as well; Taki’s Magazine also has been a fierce critic of Bush 43 politics; and now John Derbyshire of National Review fame has started a new blog, Secular Right.

And coming in January is another new blog by a National Review alum, David Frum. His offering is NewMajority.com and should be a very interesting entry into this moment of conservative/GOP/right wing soul-searching.

I’m very excited about Frum’s site because I’ve been offered the opportunity to blog at the launch. I’ll be coming at this debate from farther left than most I’m sure, offering my take on little “L” libertarianism — quite fiscally conservative and culturally liberal to moderate. I’m betting I ought to expect some very exciting feedback from the more partisan contributors, and especially readers. The challenge is welcome and I’m already planning topics to hit the gate running.

From the NewMajority pre-launch splash page:

NewMajority.com is a new political group blog edited by David Frum, and is scheduled to go live on Inauguration Day, January 18th 2009.

Update — I left Rebuild the Partyout the above list because I didn’t know about it until right now. Actually read about it first on a left wing site — Daily Kos. Looks like there’s going to be a total explosion of critical thought on fixing conservatism in general and the GOP in particular.

I’m still not certain the GOP as a national party is fixable right now. Something new may well arise out of all this intellectual activity and the GOP may become a party of marginal theocrats. Hopefully the theocrats get booted to their own little marginal party and the GOP returns to its small government roots and accepts a live-and-let-live cultural stance. Maybe too much to ask for, though.