Rob Kremer launches Conservative Majority Project
Rob Kremer is a skilled political tactician and voice for fiscal conservatism (for which he can be heard on KXL 750 on Sundays). Kremer’s latest project is the Conservative Majority Project. The project aims to fundraise to help elect conservative lawmakers in key elections.Check their website
Here is their mission statement:
"The Conservative Majority Project works to make traditional limited government conservatism a majority viewpoint in Oregon by supporting candidates in key political races who will stay true to the conservative roots of the Republican party. The CMP-PAC will target races where its resources and assistance will make the critical difference."This is similiar to Club for Growth which supports key candidates in key races, and has won a string of successes over the years.
"Our public schools are falling in national rankings, even while we give school districts 20% budget increases from the state. We now spend more than $10,000 per student on average in Oregon in total taxpayer funds. Nevertheless, school districts are STILL not held accountable for results."
Rob Kremer is a sharp guy, likable if a bit biting, from my limited personal experience. But when he ran for state super of schools, he got slaughtered 2-1 by the TV announcer Susan Castillo.
I hope he has more success persuading people with this project.
My only concern is that he may find it difficult to actually find any true conservatives to back.
They seem to all be hiding somewhere.
So if Kremer had gotten all of the Bunn votes -- very doubtful, of course, especially given his campaign platform -- he still would have gotten creamed by Castillo 55-45. Sounds like banging the old head against the wall to me. But if anyone thinks that's a favorable position, let them belly up to old election bar next time.
As for Rob Kremer, as far as I can tell, he has been very quiet about education since that 2002 election.
Sad to say - but the Republican Party in Oregon is about as effective as the old Whig Party.
Based on the description, the CMP will only support candidates who are well to the right of center. Republicans had their greatest successes in Oregon with moderates like Mark Hatfield, Bob Packwood, Tom McCall (thanks a BUNCH for those land use laws, Tom), and Vic Atiyeh. It isn't likely that the CMP would have supported any of these people.
Lately, more moderate candidates have been forced to move almost off the board to the right in order to get through the primaries. It was the far right Rs disdain for moderate former House Speaker Lynn Lundquist, who very likely would have been elected Secretary of State, that led the party to nominate Lynn Snodgrass -- who got smoked in the general election, allowing Bill Bradbury to draw the current legislative districts. That's why the Rs are now in the minority in both houses.
The CMP wouldn't have done anything to change this. In fact, they would have enthusiastically backed Snodgrass. What the Rs need are candidates who embody core traditional Republican values (limited but effective government, fiscal responsibility, pro-business) without going so far from the center on social issues that they almost give up all chance of winning.
The message has been the problem, not the money.
If Republicans want to be competative, not just in Oregon but increasingly in other states as well, they need to give "movement" conservatism (i.e. check your brain at the door and check these boxes) the boot and go back to pragmatic conservatism, as you suggest.
Talk about checking your brain at the door.
Ever noticed the left on Global Warming?
On issue after issue your left molds your clones, forever chcking honesty at the door.
Moderate-conservatives like Hatfield tend to be pragmatic problem solvers with a bias towards local solutions and fiscal prudence, and a wariness about vesting too much power in government. Moderate-liberals tend to also be pragmatic problem solvers, but with a bias towards larger government intervention and more willingness to tax and spend to help even out the uneveness of a capitalist system.
Movement conservatives and the far left (what little there is of it anymore in this country) have cast pragmatism to the wind in favor of orthodoxy. The problem for the Republican party is that it has been captured by movement conservatism, in much the same way the Democratic party became captured by the hard left for a period of years.
EE...."cults" do not base their beliefs on objective truths, but on charismatic leaders who they think have direct pipelines to God. You may think acceptance of global warming theory fits into that category, but this acceptance is rooted in objective reality, or at least our understanding of where it moment lies for now.
To the extent you are experiencing impatience, or even hostility towards your continued doubts about global warming theory, I suspect it is due to the growing urgency of the need to get moving on solutions among those of us who have accepted the preponderance of evidence, as vetted by the scientific establishment.
I suggest you look for an alternative explanation. Preponderance of evidence maybe? Naw...couldn't be that!
But back to the original post. To the extent conservatives and Republicans are willing to deny the findings of science, could that be part of your larger electoral problem?
As for winning elections, nationally the Republicans haven't been doing so bad. I give them at least even odds in November.
And as for science -- look who did more for federal science funding, Clinton/Gore or Bush/Cheney. (Hint: it wasn't the guy who was promoting the 80 mpg car malarkey.) Look who knocked over the plans to rebuild America's fading physical science efforts just a few weeks ago.
By your definition, the dumpster behind my place of business is liberal. It too, is completey open. But it is garbage in, garbage out.
But liberals, I have found, are often the first to demand complete orthodoxy. George Taylor has found that out as state climatologist, or whatever title they have reduced him to now. Kevin Mannix learned that as a Democrat who dared to be more conservative and was run out of the party.
An open mind is a good thing, but you must also add judgment to it, and respect for positions that are in opposition to yours and a flexibility to change, to the degree the idea in question is worthy of public discourse.
As far as Rob and Jared's effort, they have said they are competing in districts where a conservative could and should be elected. Rob has a record of supporting practicality in his electoral choices.
I completely support their effort.
Your statement that there aren't many in the far left anymore is absurd. The Democrat party has been hijacked by the far left. The left, now, has become the center of gravity in the Democrat party and you now consider that to be "moderate."
But I defy you to look at the founding documents of communist and socialist doctrine and find all that much substantive difference between them and the modern Democrat and Green party platform statements. They have become classic leftists.
Look, for example, at the 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto. At least 4 of the planks are directly supported by the Democrats (such as "#2: A heavy progressive or graduated income tax"). No, I am not saying Democrats have a parity with Communists, don't take me out of context. I am saying that there are planks of similarity in the platforms, and the extent I am taking it is only to refute your position that there are few leftists in the party...and to suggest that what was once understood to be far left is now just mainstream liberalism.
But George Will has made the point that the old Socialist Party of Norman Thomas in the USA was the most successful party of the 20th century. Because all of their agenda was enacted, and is accepted today, by both major parties.
It doesn't have anything to do with statewide candidates. Thus your vapid comments regarding such are...well... vapid.
The name conservative MAJORITY project tells a lot in and of itself.
There is a chance that Republicans can win back the majority in the House. It will be difficult but it is possible.
So before you start criticising Rob for something that he is not even working toward, why don't you actually sit down and look at a map of Oregon and the various house seats. Look at the registration percentages and consider the issues that will be driving those local elections.
Inform yourselves before you start looking more and more silly.
yip yip
Now there are a couple Senate seats that will be open that might be accessible. I believe Westlund is going to give his up, that is a generally conservative section of the state so that may revert back to GOP hands.
Now, being as I see Jeff Merkely's legislative record as unsettling, I also believe that once it is highlighted, most Oregonians will also. That being said, I believe Smith will win his senate bid handily which may be the cause of a coattail effect in some of the closer state races.
With Hooley out, I think that , that seat is the GOP's to lose due to party registrants.
As for McCain, there could be a backlash to his running from 2nd Amendment supporters who remember his stab in the back in 2000, those of us who don't want one of the corrupt Keating 5 as our president and a very large crowd of immigration enforement supporters. Unless he can pich up a lot of liberals, I don't see him winning..........unless Hillary gets the DNC nod, then all bets are off, lol!
There is a chance that it will snow in Portland on the 4th of July, too, but I wouldn't want to count on it. The Republican leadership in the Oregon House is pretty much telling you that they're not counting on winning back a majority there -- or Minnis, Scott, et al, would be running again this time.
Yes, the CMP does deal with legislative races. But you still have to find ELECTABLE candidates. From the approach suggested on the CMP web site, you would think that the problem the Rs have is that their candidates aren't doctrinaire enough. Organizing a campaign on the theory that planting your feet in a foot of concrete is better than putting them in only six inches of the stuff doesn't seem like a winning strategy. Voters are looking for more moderation and compromise from the Rs, not more commitment to philosophical purity.
The bigger question is whether or not the Dems can gain enough seats to be able to pass tax increase measures out of that chamber.
I would define "far left," or orthodox left as communism, socialism, and perhaps anarchism. The Green Party comes close, but last I looked they formed because the Demcratic Party was too centrist.
If you look at the actual proposals of the leading Democrats, on Iraq, on health care, on taxes, on global warming, and down the list, they are in synch with 60-70% of Americans according to reliable polls. So if that is "far left," it means the whole country is "far left," which is absurd on its face, since left and right are relative, not absolute positions.
For example, yes, Democrats are more inclined to support progressive taxation, meaning higher amounts from higher incomes. But how much are they proposing to actually raise the upper bracket? Essentially to where it was under Clinton, or 38%. Not very radical that. I would go to 50.
Yes...party activists are generally father left than the majority. But they have not "hijacked' the party. They ARE the party. Just like the conservative activists who set the agenda for Republicans ARE the party. But when one objectively compares the two parties today, once can't help but conclude that the dems are more in synch with the majority. If you don't believe me now, maybe you will after November 08.
EE...Gore's book and movie have been thouroughly vetted by the leading scientists who support global warming theory. I've seen only 2 substantive criticisms of his presentation, one being an exageration of the pace of sea level rise, the other having to do with the Hockey Stick graph. It seems to me that he has admitted he showed a worst case on sea level rise. on the Hockey Stick, since it was used to illustrate temperature rise, and since even the remaining doubters no longer dispute the fact that temperatures have risen as depicted, at most one can say it was an illustravitve exaggeration, not a factual one.
I'll definitely take your even odds bet for this November. How about a gentleman's wager? If Obama or Clinton wins you have to accept global warming theory, or at least agree to never write into this site challenging it again. If McCain wins you get to pick the topic that I have to change my position or stay silent on. Agreed?
And finally, RR...very well put.
Sea level rise? The MAINSTREAM best prediction is 1-2 ft. by the end of the century. Gore strongly implied, if he didn't quite state, according to my understadning -- I wouldn't pay to watch his dumb movie -- that it would be 20ft. (And I have seen a supposedly serious scientist predict 40 ft., and publicist Bill McKibben predict something similar, in public presentations at UO).
The hockey stick? Are you serious? That piece of trashy "science" was unmasked long ago. Nobody takes it seriously anymore.