Mercy, Trust, and the Future of the Republican Party

This post originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics.

Though I’ve paused from a lot of blogging about politics this year, I haven’t stopped thinking about it. It’s just that, because there is so much going on that troubles me, it is hard to process it all and remain positive—and I didn’t want to write much again until I could offer something I felt was positive to consider.

What I kept coming back to was a conversation I had with two lawyers during a dinner in New York over 20 years ago. As we paused from discussing the cases we were working on together, our discussion turned to politics—both local to New York and nationally. Both of my colleagues from New York were liberal Democrats, and as I listened to them a thought came to my mind that—being young and a little impetuous—I offered to them. It went something like this:

I think the biggest problem in politics today is that politicians don’t seem to be addressing the issues that government was designed to address, and I think that is because, in part, we’ve forgotten how to show mercy to our fellow man.

Remember that at the end of the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Christ posed the question: “So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?” And the lawyer answered, “He who showed mercy upon him.” Then Christ affirmed the lawyer’s answer by saying, “Go and do likewise.”

I look around and too few people in public life are showing the mercy that truly loving their neighbor requires of them. Today, we still have people walking down the road, like the priest and the Levite, who avert their eyes and keep walking—they’ve always been among us. But now it seems as though the people who do stop to help the stripped and wounded man on the side of the road do one of two things: they either stop others, demand contributions from them (like taxes or tolls), and then give the donations to the man on the side of the road; or they sermonize to the man on how his own mistakes led to his current predicament and how he should change his life to avoid such calamities in the future. Then, both men leave, feeling good about themselves and the help they believe they provided to him; meanwhile, the stripped and wounded man on the side of the road is still left to die.

There are no Samaritans among us today.

I remember my dinner companions stopped and looked at me, and said nothing for what seemed an eternity. Then the senior attorney looked at me and said, “Ed, I can’t find any basis to disagree with you. Sadly, we are all at fault for this.” Then the conversation moved quickly on to a sailing regatta the other attorney would be participating in that weekend, and we never broached the subject again.

Based on this reaction, I rarely tried to express this idea again publicly, but I still believe it to be the primary problem we face today—and it has only gotten worse over the last two decades. I believe that the political party that correctly embraces the ideal of the Samaritan as the core of our society will be the party that captures the imagination and the trust of the voters. The ideal of the Samaritan should be the natural position of American Conservatives and the Republican Party, if only we will embrace it.

Our Settlers and Founding Fathers understood and accepted the challenge of trying to create a society around the Samaritan ideal on this Continent, even though they were woefully blind in their initial application of this ideal when it came to Catholics, Native Americans, Africans, Irish and Women (just to name a few groups)—a blindness that would haunt us for centuries. But the ideal itself became the correcting force that eventually changed our society for the better.

It is the Samaritan ideal that led us to form families, congregations, civic organizations, and private businesses; to create the neighborhoods where these institutions would take root and flourish; to push those neighborhoods across a continent; to form colonies and states to preserve and protect those neighborhoods; to create a nation to protect this societal structure; and, finally, to open our society’s promise to all its citizens.

The limited nature of the federal government wasn’t designed to oppress individuals, but rather to protect the sanctity and vitality of these neighborhoods of free people, in which most of the decisions that would guide day-to-day life would be made and performed.

This model only works, though, if the ideal is taken seriously—that each citizen, in his or her own way, accepts the challenge to show mercy to our neighbors. Unless each citizen accepts this responsibility, the trust necessary for the model to sustain self-governance at the local and state level evaporates and creates a vacuum—a vacuum that is subject to being filled by an expanding federal government that is not institutionally competent to fill it. Forget the express limits written into the Constitution for a minute, and just remember that far-away agents, bureaucrats, and social workers with one-size-fits-all assignments, regardless of their best intentions, will never provide the mercy that our Settlers and Founders believed would be necessary to build and maintain trusting neighborhoods of free people.

We can argue until the cows come home over how and why we got into our present mess, but the time for political change is now and the blueprint for that change has always been within our grasp—the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution (as amended), and the Federalist Papers. What is needed now is the will to embrace the Samaritan ideal and our founding blueprint, and to apply it to our diverse 21^st Century society. What is needed now is the willingness to seriously address the reforms at each level of government—from Washington to our school boards—that is needed to restore the mercy and rebuild the trust needed to apply our American blueprint to the 21^st Century.

We will never corral and control public spending and debt until we make this reform, we will never fix public education until we make this reform, we will never fix both the security of our borders and our immigration policies without this reform, and we will be unable to meet the commitments we promised to the rest of the world after World War II unless we commit to this reform.

If the Republican Party embraces this reform, and explains how it will improve the lives of each of our citizens by giving them the means to control their lives and accomplish their dreams for themselves and their children, we will regain the trust of voters needed to win elections and govern. But to do that, we Republicans must practice what we preach among ourselves, too—we must show mercy and trust among our own factions, for as Lincoln reminded us so long ago, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”

As a life-long Republican who continues to revere the life’s work of Lincoln, Goldwater, Dirksen, Reagan and Kemp, I believe we can—we must, we will—accept this challenge and embrace this reform.

As Autumn Approaches, It’s Time To Govern

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics:


The last few months have been a time of reflection and rejuvenation for me, as I attended to personal and professional matters, and stepped away—as much as possible—from political matters. But Labor Day has now past, and the traditional summer “vacation” has ended, so now it is time for me to return to the political issues and races of 2014, which are just now starting to heat-up.

During my hiatus, I accumulated a fairly long list of issues that I could write about when I returned. While I will write about many of these issues over the next few months (and I will return to the issue of Education reform once we get a written opinion from the trial judge in Austin in the school-finance litigation), I want to start with what I perceive as the common thread that runs through so many of these issues: the need for the Republican Party to govern.

The need to govern on first principles

Now those of you who are awake and living in Texas will immediately respond by saying something like, “Ed, isn’t that what we’ve been doing for the last two decades?” And the answer I would give them is, frankly, “no”—at least, not the way I mean it.

To govern, a party must have first principles that it seeks to enshrine in public policy; to do so, the party must work to elect officeholders who will infuse its principles into law and then administer those laws effectively and creatively to achieve ends that are consistent with the first principles. Principles are just that—they are principles, not ideology. The process of enshrining principles into law, requires positive commitment and persuasion, and—yes—the ability to compromise by making wise and timely trade-offs and choices. Then, governing requires competence to administer the laws effectively and creatively, so that the civil society that is realized closely approximates the civil society we had hoped to create and maintain.

We once had leaders in both parties who understood this process. As recently as the Nixon and Reagan Presidencies, we had leaders who understood the guiding principles of American foreign policy (first survival with, and then victory over Communism). Then, with Reagan, came a man who understood the deepest first principles of our country and our party, and who knew how to enshrine those principles in public policy through commitment, persuasion, and compromise. Together, Nixon and Reagan spawned a generation of competent men and women capable of effectively and creatively administer government.

The move from first principles to ideology

Unfortunately, as the Clinton years turned into the Bush 43 years, and then into the Obama years, both parties slowly moved away from competing over principles to fighting over ideology; and worse, the GOP has waged an internal battle over ideology—masked as the perennial fight over whom among us is the most “conservative”—that has left our shared principles flailing to survive. The effects of these battles between the parties and with the GOP can be seen in the sordid responses to so many of the issues that have percolated to the surface this summer, including the pathetic handwringing going on all over Washington about whether and how to address the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime—which, hour-by-hour, day-by-day is slowly ceding the balance of global power and responsibility held by Washington and Europe since 1945 to Moscow, Beijing and Tehran, regardless of the ultimate decision and action that will be taken. Any American over the age of 45 should be very concerned about this drift in global influence.

In the meantime, the Obama years’ shift to an “all butter, no guns” ideology of government is creating a federal government that will be too large and irresponsible to ever govern at home, or maintain the peace abroad, effectively. On the other hand, at state and local levels where the GOP maintains the majority of political power in this country, conservatism has the greatest opportunity it has had in a generation to show that it is an effective governing philosophy. All the GOP needs is a return to the principles that unite us, and an end to the civil war that has divided us; and a commitment to the future, rather than a rigid adherence to the past.

Texas and Harris County as leaders

For Republicans in Texas and Harris County, this process is important not just for the county and the state, but also to the nation. We Republicans in Texas often lose perspective of the fact that we are to American Conservatism what California and New York are to American Liberalism—the outlier state at the farthest end of the political spectrum. Yes, this does mean that we are, more often than not, trend setters for other conservatives, and we get frustrated by the more moderate Republicans in our midst and in other parts of the country. But it also means that most of the rest of our fellow countrymen, including our fellow Republicans see us both as trend setters and as kooks—much like the clothes buyers who have to evaluate the fashion designers who exhibit their new designs in New York, Paris and Milan every year. And, just like the designers at the cutting-edge of the fashion world who value the purity of their creativity over the value of their designs to the general public, we too often value the purity of our “conservatism” over the effectiveness of our ability to enshrine our principles into the real-world policies that our countrymen live with every day of their lives. If we in Texas and Harris County want to be the leaders of a new era of American Conservatism, we need to help design and promote policies that will allow our elected officials to use our principles to address real problems, rather than enshrine the latest ideological fad into bad (and ultimately irrelevant) law.

Defining and deploying first principles

Virtually every Republican I have ever met believes in a constitutionally limited federal government, where the power and responsibility over most daily issues are handled locally and privately by individuals, families, businesses, and civic or religious organizations, or locally and publicly by state and local governments. We believe in the prosperity created by free markets and free trade, which creates a tide that lifts all boats. We believe in a national defense that protects not just our borders and our citizens from immediate danger, but that preserves the balance of power that has allowed for the greatest era of economic growth and prosperity the world has ever known. And we believe in the development of personal character and virtue, which leads us to live a life in which we make more right choices than wrong as we develop relationships, create families and build neighborhoods.

If we believe in these principles, then let’s stop fighting with each other and start building a party that will elect men and women who will enshrine these principles into policy: who will cost-effectively build the infrastructure we need to maintain our communities, reform the schools we will need to educate our children, and promote health through preserving the local doctor-patient relationship; who creatively will bring the message and the policies of our principles into the communities in our region in which too many of our neighbors are under-educated, under-employed and over-incarcerated; and who will promote the right choices in life that slowly, steadily and wisely develop character and virtue, over the constant condemnation of what we perceive as wrong choices that simply separate us and our principles from our neighbors.

An older era has been slipping away this summer. If we conservatives want an effective voice in shaping the new, emerging era in a way that preserves what is best about our society, we need to stop fighting over ideology and start promoting our shared principles.

********

The passing of District Attorney Mike Anderson

On a last point, I want briefly to address the passing of Mike Anderson.

I first met Mike, and his wife, Devon, while I was running as a judicial candidate in 2007-08 and Devon was running for re-election. I grew to like both Mike and Devon personally, and to respect the work they had been doing as prosecutors and district-court judges. The news of Mike’s passing on Saturday was so sad.

To Devon, I think I am expressing the feeling of most members of the Republican family in Harris County when I say that you and your children—and Mike—are in our thoughts and prayers; and we are here for you, just as you and Mike were here for us, if and when you need a helping hand over the months and years ahead.

To the rest of us, we have some soul-searching to do. We have been embroiled in two difficult primaries over the office of District Attorney since December, 2007, when the scandals that brought down Chuck Rosenthal became public, and we now are facing two election cycles in a row when this office will again be on the ballot. As for the last cycle, though Mike won the primary handily, the contest was very bitter among our party activists. Because I also respected Judge Lykos and some of the reforms she had proposed and started to implement, I found the last primary cycle so difficult—two good, conservative public servants, with somewhat different approaches, were fighting over the future of the criminal justice system. We cannot repeat the bitterness of the last primary and hope to keep this office in Republican hands—and the fate of the criminal justice system in this county hangs in the balance.

Soon Governor Perry will appoint someone to succeed Mike, and there will be a contested primary. The names I am hearing so far, for either the appointment or the primary race, are all good and qualified Republicans. Let’s keep that in mind as the race unfolds and make our choice on merit, rather than on one of the many issues that seem to always divide us. That approach would be the greatest legacy we could give to Mike’s memory and tenure in public office.

Citizenship and “Right-Wing Social Engineering”

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics:

Last night, as I listened to Newt Gingrich’s victory speech after winning the South Carolina Republican Presidential Primary, he made several statements the caught my attention—but none more than his nod to Governor Perry’s endorsement and their shared commitment to the 10th Amendment and returning power to the states.  As he discussed this point he said that one of the reasons he was asking voters to be “with me not just for me” was because as “we shrink the federal bureaucracy” we must “grow citizenship back home to fill the vacuum.”

I could not agree more strongly.  As I’ve tried to challenge fellow Republicans over the last few years, if we are successful in electing Republican majorities at every level of government and a Republican President, in 2012; and if we are successful in passing the legislation needed to limit the size and scope of the federal government and balancing its budget—what then?  The needs of our fellow citizens that the left has tried to address through federal-government schemes over the last 50 years won’t miraculously disappear.  The divisions that Charles Murray discusses in this new article, The New American Divide, which culturally exist within every racial and ethnic community in this country, won’t magically dissolve.  No, the paradox of our victory will be that it only will start our job to fix this country, rather than end it.

For our victory to last, we must use our political freedom to re-assert our liberty, which includes our reciprocal responsibilities as citizens—responsibilities to govern ourselves, our families, our neighborhoods, our schools, and our states. This renewal of self-governance will require our active participation in the life of our communities, rather than continuing to delegate such participation to faceless bureaucrats in distant capitals.  This active participation is the growth in “citizenship back home to fill the vacuum” that Gingrich is championing.  If we don’t accept this responsibility, the activists of the collectivist left will re-emerge and re-take control of government from us—and our unique system won’t survive another spasm of leftist policies.

Now for those who think this is just another “off the cuff” idea from Gingrich, you’re wrong.  In fact, he has been tremendously consistent about the relationship between limiting the federal government and a re-assertion of citizenship for many years.  He made this point in his first major speech as Speaker-elect to the National Press Club in late 1994, and in the “American Civilization” college courses he taught in the mid-1990s.  Nor is this idea new and revolutionary—it formed the heart of our Settlers’ and Founders’ view of America that de Tocqueville observed in action, and it formed the foundation of Reagan’s blueprint for his “New Republican Party” in 1977.

In fact, in a uniquely Gingrichian way, his widely derided critique of Paul Ryan’s budget proposal last year was consistent with his view of the need for citizenship.  His point was not that he disagreed with the ends or the means of that budget, but that such broad and fundamental reforms contained in that budget would not work unless and until the people were ready to re-accept their responsibilities at the local level—it was putting the cart before the horse.  To force such a sweeping change on people until they are persuaded to accept what that change means to their lives, would be “social engineering” from the present status quo that depends on federal involvement.

Now, I agree that Newt’s choice of words was wrong, but his point was correct.  As we fix the federal government, we must persuade the American people to re-assert their citizenship and to accept the responsibilities that citizenship will require from all of us.  Like you, I want, and the country needs, Paul Ryan’s approach to fixing the budget and the federal government, but it won’t work, and it will only delay the day on which we become a European welfare state, if we don’t become real citizens of this great nation again.  In fact, look in the mirror and ask yourself—isn’t this re-commitment to citizenship what the Tea Party movement was all about?  I can tell you that this re-commitment to citizenship is what forms the basis for the “Renewing the American Community” plan that I and others have been working to develop for the last two years.

So, whether Newt, Rick, Ron or Mitt becomes our nominee, we must dedicate ourselves like our forefathers did—with our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor—to not just taking back the government from the left, but to rebuilding the bonds of citizenship with each other in order for our reforms to work and for America to remain the exceptional and indispensable nation—and Reagan’s ideal of a Shining City on a Hill.

My Letter to Mitt Romney

This letter originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics:

Well, as the Republican Presidential roadshow moves on to South Carolina, I must admit that the disappointment I expressed in my last post is turning, slowly, to a begrudging acceptance of the looming reality we face. No matter how much I still hope that another candidate will emerge during the primaries, or at the convention, whose views and experience show him or her to be a real Conservative reformer, history shows that such a development is highly unlikely now. Therefore, I must prepare to support Mitt Romney if he wins the nomination, because I can not stand by and let Obama’s Democratic Party win this election.

But, bowing to such reality does not mean that I, and those of you who agree with me, must drop our desire for reform based on Reagan’s New Republican Party blueprint of 1977, and the recent 10^th Amendment movement. Instead, we should work to give Governor Romney (or whoever may still emerge from this process) the tools and support he will need to make the reforms we want: retention of the GOP’s House majority; gaining a GOP majority in the Senate and changing the filibuster rules once and for all to allow the basic business of government, like the passage of a budget, to be done; and retention and expansion of our majority in state houses and governorships. Above all else, we must continue to remind Governor Romney of what we want to see our party accomplish if it wins this election.

To that last end, here is my open letter to the Governor:

Dear Governor Romney:

As a supporter of another candidate in the GOP field this year, I congratulate you on your victories to date, and on the progress you are making toward winning the nomination of our party for the Presidency. Though there are many contests still to be fought in this process, and through those contests I will remain part of the loyal opposition, I want you to know that, as a Reagan Conservative, I will support you and work for your election if you win the GOP nomination. That said, I want to share some thoughts with you about this race from someone who has not supported you to date.

I have been told from a close friend who worked with you after you took over the 2002 Winter Olympics, that you are one of the finest managers of people and of business with whom he has ever worked. That is high praise, indeed. Moreover, your history of accomplishments in the private sector, and as Governor of a very Democratic state, supports this praise of your managerial skills. But, many of us believe that we need more than just a better manager to fix what ails this country, and we desperately hope that you are ready for the challenges you must face if you win this election. In light of this concern, I, for one, was impressed by one of the answers you gave in a recent debate in which you outlined what you believed to be the core issue against Obama as a conflict of visions of this country and for its future.

I hope you will expand on this theme over the coming months in the context of addressing the deep, structural problems that we as a people must address, debate, and resolve if we are to climb out of the whole we have dug for ourselves over the last few years. Although others may articulate these problems differently, I believe we face three fundamental problems that underlie virtually every problem you and your fellow Republican candidates have been discussing and debating during this campaign:

• The American people need to decide what role they want government to have in their lives, in the lives of their families, and in the lives of their communities—and why government should have such a role. To make this decision, we will need to take a hard look at how and where we (currently, and will in the future) live and work in the 21^st Century, and what activities must remain within the responsibility of individuals, their families, and their private organizations and churches to address. Once we take that hard look, we then will need to determine what activities need the attention of the collective responsibility of government (by itself or in coordination with the private sector), as opposed to remaining solely within the responsibility of the private sector. My guess is that the outcome of this debate will result in a different allocation of responsibility than what our ancestors, and even our parents, would have made, but we will never be able to address the future spending and revenue needs of the public sector of this country unless we have a candid discussion of this issue.
• Once this basic decision is made, we need to determine which responsibilities involve international or interstate activities, and which involve local or intrastate activities. Based on that determination, we need to apply our constitutional rules to determine which level of government should address each responsibility.
• Once this determination is made, the federal government needs to be reformed—branch by branch, and department by department—to address its international and interstate responsibilities efficiently and cost-effectively, and state and local governments need to be encouraged to do the same. Then, budget and tax policies need to be reformed to provide the resources needed to address these responsibilities in a manner that recognizes that wealth and property, in the first instance, belong to those who created them.

Governor, my guess is that most people will want government to continue to take responsibility for many of the activities that government programs currently attempt to address. The difference will be that such responsibilities should be, and will be re-allocated so that they are addressed more efficiently and cost-effectively at the local and state levels, and at those levels will be more likely to share their work with the private sector in each community. Moreover, such re-allocation will naturally cut from government much of the bureaucratic duplication that leads to the growth in the size, cost and debt of government at all levels. Finally, if people realize that the GOP doesn’t want to throw their grandparents into poverty, or abandon safety nets for our neighbors in true need, but, instead, wants to reform government consistent with its properly limited structure to make it more effective and to engage our citizens again to become active participants in the lives of the neighbors and neighborhoods, much of the wind will be taken from the sails of the great Democratic argument that has portrayed Republicans as unfeeling and uncaring extremists for generations.

That last point leads me to the final part of this letter. You recently have been criticized over the activities of Bain Capital while you managed that company. While some conservative commentators are wringing their hands over this development, I believe that this criticism, coming now, is a blessing to your candidacy, because it gives you an opportunity to turn this criticism into a strength during the rest of the election cycle. To create this strength, you need to understand the fears that the stereotypes underlying these criticisms arouse, and address the country about how the free market works and how you would apply your experience from your role in the free market to reform the government.

Ever since Commodore Vanderbilt took advantage of the economic depression of the late 1830s at the dawn of the railroad boom, Americans have had a love-hate relationship with those who have provided the financial capital within our free market system. We know that we have needed the Vanderbilts, the Morgans, the Carnegies, the Mellons, … and the Bain Capitals, along with banks and bondholders, to provide the loans, the bonds and the equity entrepreneurs need to turn their ideas into products and services—and wealth. In turn, we know that the wealth that is created employs people, whose earnings support their families, their communities and their states, and the nation. But most Americans have never embraced the bankers and investors as the positive image of the free market.

Instead, we tend to identify the free market with the “Horatio Alger” story of the entrepreneur—the man or woman who has the initial idea, who puts his or her own money and labor into the development of the idea into a product or service, and who creates a successful business that employs people, and builds and spreads wealth, from such efforts. Meanwhile, we have come to view the bankers and the investors as necessary evils in the free-market process who obtain their wealth without rolling-up their sleeves and building a business, and who retain the interest and dividends they were paid even after the businesses fail. Indeed, a popular post-war novel that was later made into a popular movie—Cash McCall—had as its central character such an investor, who endured many of the same criticisms that are now being leveled at you and Bain Capital.

But the ending of that story is instructive. McCall buys a business that appears to be about to fail, and then merges it with its main customer and receives what appears to be a fast, windfall return for his investors. The founder of the business who sold it to McCall is irate and feels swindled, until he realizes that McCall’s fresh set of eyes found a nugget of value that the founder never understood and would have never marketed—patents on the products he had developed. Those patents, locked away and forgotten, had hidden value in the market for the company, and it took an outsider to find it. Companies like Bain Capital bring that fresh pair of outside eyes that are able to objectively reassess the value of an entity and reform it to make it more effective, in return for a fee and/or a dividend.

Like McCall, sometimes Bain’s efforts work, and sometimes there is no long-term value to find or develop and the company fails. Anyone who has ever laid-off or fired an employee, or closed a business, knows how hard that is—you’re not just asking a person to leave, you are ending a source of income and benefits that supports a family, and that indirectly supports a community. When that happens, stresses are put on families, neighborhoods, schools and churches—and governments—to help these people through their time of transition. In part, investors use many of the dividends they receive to pay, through contributions and taxes, to support the organizations and governments that provide the support to individuals in time of need and to create the infrastructure in our communities. In the end, investors and banks that provide capital play an indispensible role in the creation of wealth and employment in a free market, and in the maintenance of our communities.

Your experience from providing that fresh pair of eyes in the evaluation of businesses can translate well to the need we now have for reform—and you need to tell the American people about the relevance of that experience to the challenges we face. We need a fresh pair of eyes to look at the responsibilities that the federal government has assumed, and to re-allocate them; to look at how the federal government is structured, and to reform it; and to look at how the money is raised and spent by the federal government, and to stop deficit spending. The only difference between your time at Bain and the challenge you face is this—you can’t just close the federal government; but you can, and you must, close agencies and departments, and stop paying for activities, if their missions no longer fit the proper allocation of federal responsibility or an efficient allocation of federal resources.

Governor, you have been given a great opportunity to tell this story of the free market, of how your experience in the free market (coupled with your unique experience as a Republican Governor of an archetypal Democratic state) applies to the challenges you will have to address, and how our Republican vision contrasts with the economic vision of the Democrats. Please use the criticism you are now getting to further refine a positive narrative before the general election campaign, so that we truly can present a vision to the American people this fall that competes with the socialist vision of capitalists and the free market as evil. If you develop such a positive message that dovetails with a positive plan for government reform, you can carry the Reagan mantle into the fall election. I hope you will.

Sincerely,

Ed Hubbard

To save the Reagan Revolution and the 10th Amendment, we may need a brokered convention

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics:

In the wake of the Iowa Caucus results yesterday, it would be fair to say that I am disappointed with the direction in which the Republican nomination process is headed. There was essentially a three-way tie between a managerial Republican of the Eisenhower mold from Massachusetts, a pro-life statist Republican of the William Jennings Bryan mold who lost his last statewide election by 18%, and an anti-government libertarian who has never been elected to office outside his Congressional District in Texas. If this race continues along this course, I am afraid that the budding Reaganite movement to resurrect and implement the principles of the 10^th Amendment will die on the vine. In a year when we Conservatives have the greatest chance since 1980 of not only winning the Presidency, but changing the direction of the country, this development is depressing.

Then, I read here that a number of self-anointed leaders were being invited to convene at a Texas ranch to try to short-circuit the nomination process and pick a “conservative” candidate for us to support. Given the track record of the leaders of this group, I have no confidence that the candidate they choose to support will be Conservative, or will give a hoot about the 10^th Amendment. As depressed as I am at the current state of the race, this attempt to hijack the process is wrong. I, for one, am not inclined to support anyone anointed through such a process.

As hard as it is to watch this nomination process unfold, it should be allowed to unfold. It should be allowed to go through all of the primaries, and then to the convention. Let’s still give our 10^th Amendment candidates, like Perry and Gingrich, the chance to continue to make their case through the primaries, and let’s really see if any of these candidates has what it takes to win this nomination. Then, if no candidate receives a majority of the delegates before the convention starts, let the convention pick the nominee. Those are the rules of our party, and the rules under which we started this race, so let’s follow them.

In fact, the way that this race is unfolding, I believe that a brokered convention could lead to the nomination of a strong Conservative candidate—one who understands the real promise of the Reagan Revolution and the 10^th Amendment, and one who is fighting in the trenches to make conservatism work. One who believes the following:

… Americans, in a vast majority, are still a people born for self-governance. They are ready to summon the discipline to pay down our collective debts as they are now paying down their own; to put the future before the present, their children’s interest before their own. …
We should distinguish carefully skepticism about Big Government from contempt for all government. After all, it is a new government we hope to form, a government we will ask our fellow citizens to trust to make huge changes. …

… If freedom’s best friends cannot unify around a realistic, actionable program of fundamental change, one that attracts and persuades a broad majority of our fellow citizens, big change will not come. Or rather, big change will come, of the kind that the skeptics of all centuries have predicted for those naïve societies that believed that government of and by the people could long endure. …

The second worst outcome I can imagine for next year would be to lose to the current president and subject the nation to what might be a fatal last dose of statism. The worst would be to win the election and then prove ourselves incapable of turning the ship of state before it went on the rocks, with us at the helm.

The man who spoke these words was Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana, in his address at last year’s CPAC convention (full text here). Daniels is one potential candidate, other than Perry or Gingrich, who the convention delegates could turn to, but there are others—like Governors Walker of Wisconsin, Snyder of Michigan, Kasich of Ohio and Christie of New Jersey, who are fighting to rebuild their state governments consistent with principles of Reagan’s New Republican Party, and like Paul Ryan, who has championed a new vision for government through his bold proposals. One or more of these men could still jump into this race before the April “winner-take-all” primaries begin if Perry or Gingrich don’t catch fire, or they could still answer the call of a brokered convention.

So, let this process unfold, and, while doing so, let’s fight for our future through the rules provided. Let’s not let any self-anointed group choose our nominee—let’s control this process to the very end. If we do, I still believe we will choose someone, either through the primaries or at the convention, who not only will beat Obama, but will lead us through the changes we need to implement to preserve the promise of the country for our children and grandchildren.

A Most Misunderstood Man

This column originally appeared at US Daily Review.

Over the years I have come to the conclusion that many of our political and social problems here in the U.S. and in Europe stem from the fact that over the last 250 years we have misunderstood, misinterprete d and misapplied the teachings of Adam Smith and Charles Darwin. These

failings apply equally over the centuries to those who have purported to be their followers as well as to their critics. Moreover, these failings intertwined to fuel diabolical military, political and social misadventures that cursed the world from the 1930s and through the 1960s.

But this is not a post about either of these men or their teachings. It is about a third man—a man of the 20th Century—who, unfortunately, now is arguably among the most misunderstood of recent history: Ronald Reagan. As we head into a political season when his real ideas are needed as much as, if not more than ever, we need to address and correct the misunderstandings, misinterpretations and misapplications by both his followers and his critics, or else we could end up making matters far worse in the long run than they are today.

Let me start by saying that I don’t pretend to be a “Reagan Scholar”. On occasion over the years, I have shared with others the fact that I was lucky to have interacted with Reagan when I was young on a handful of occasions when I was between the ages of 10 and 17, and it was based on the last of those interactions that I became a steadfast follower of his ideas—and have remained such a follower ever since. Although I may at some point elaborate on those experiences, what I am going to say now has nothing to do with them. Instead, my observations come from years of following what the man actually wrote, said and did over many decades.

I want to start with the biggest misunderstanding that has permeated our memory of Reagan—the idea that his leadership was primarily a product of his unique speaking skills. Though this fallacy is embraced almost universally, it is the driving interpretation of Reagan from the left. They never saw Reagan as a man of substance, but rather as a “pied piper” who led through the hypnosis of his speaking skills and cue cards (that were written by others). As a character in John Ford’s famous movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance said, “once the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” For decades now, the idea that Reagan was simply “the Great Communicator” has become part of our social legend.

Reagan, himself, tried to dispel the myth in his Farewell Address in 1989, when he said that he was not a great communicator because of how he spoke, but because of the ideas he tried to convey. You see, Reagan had an understanding of himself and his purpose that few have ever comprehended.

The Democrats surely never have. After the Dukakis debacle in 1988, they went looking for “great communicators” and found a young, Southern Governor, with a folksy charm and an Ivy League degree, who could talk for hours about anything and say nothing; and in 2008, found an urbane young man who effectively used a teleprompter and vague, overwrought rhetoric to make his leftist ideas seem mainstream. Essentially, Democrats to this day believe Reagan simply fooled the American people into following Republicans, and they’ve chosen their leaders based on their ability to fool enough people to follow Democrats long enough to win an election. In the meantime, we on the right continue to feed the legend by referring to Reagan as “the Great Communicator,” forgetting the derisive origin of that label, and thereby unwittingly continuing to marginalize the real strength of the man’s intellect.

Recently, through the publication of more of Reagan’s papers and of his diaries, the public is finally getting a glimpse—but still only a glimpse—of a man who may have had one of the greatest minds for political philosophy in the last half of the 20th Century. After receiving a liberal arts education from Eureka College, and after becoming a leader in the labor movement in California after World War II, Reagan began re-thinking all of his political assumptions and absorbed historical and political writings like a sponge. Due to his unique schedule as an actor and labor leader, Reagan had plenty of time to study and reflect during the 1940s and 1950s. Then his chance to continue his study increased with a purpose, when he was engaged by General Electric to be its national spokesman.

By the early 1960s, Reagan had transformed himself intellectually into a force of nature. In one of his last books, The Reagan I Knew, William F. Buckley, Jr., describes this Reagan whom the public never knew. When Reagan burst into the country’s political consciousness with his famous televised speech for the Goldwater campaign in 1964, they saw not a man reading cue cards, but a formidable political intellectual, who wrote his own speech, and who spoke with a purpose using the skills honed over a decade of public speaking for General Electric. It is that politician who won two landslide victories for Governor of California over the best candidates the Democratic Party had in that state; who nearly stole the 1968 Republican Convention from Nixon; who came within an eyelash of beating the incumbent for the 1976 Republican nomination; who, from 1977 to 1980, started to change the Republican Party with a new vision; who, then, changed the political and economic trajectory of this country; and who, with the help of Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II, changed the world.

This Reagan believed that economic conservatives who had traditionally supported the Republican Party, and social conservatives who had traditionally supported the Democratic Party, could be molded into a “new” Republican Party, and he worked to create that new party after his loss in 1976. Unfortunately, this new party has never fully formed. Almost from the instant of his great landslide re-election victory in 1984, factions formed within his party, which continue to this day. Although these factions have formed coalitions long enough to win three national elections since 1988, as well as to elect Republican Congresses through much of the last 20 years, they still have not formed the molded party of Reagan’s vision. This failure is the primary reason why Democrats remain viable as a political party, which has led to such disastrous policies since 2006.

The primary reason these factions within the GOP remain divided is that we conservatives still don’t embrace the real vision Reagan had for this party, and our field of Presidential candidates reflects this fundamental problem. Without going down the list of candidates and their misinterpretations of Reagan, let me just present a short list of examples of misunderstandings:

• Reagan’s whole view started with the individual, families and communities. He believed the genius of America arose from individuals, engaging in work in a free market, and engaging in self-governance through families, private organizations, churches, and local governments. Regulations, and government in general, should be focused on protecting those activities.

• Reagan did not believe in small and weak government. Instead, he believed in strong governments at each level whose powers were limited to specific responsibilities, and that we had delegated too much responsibility to the federal government. Responsibility and tax dollars needed to be returned to individuals, local governments and state governments (in that order) who were closer to the problems that needed to be addressed.

• Reagan did not view the reduction or elimination of taxes as a social and economic good in and of itself, but by the late 1970s reduction of taxes had become an economic and political imperative. There is no question that Reagan believed that individuals had the right to keep the fruits of their labor—it was their money that they had earned, and the government had no entitlement to it. He also relied on evidence from the Coolidge and Kennedy administrations that showed that lowering taxes often, if not always, had the effect of raising tax revenue because it increased economic activity. However, he also believed that taxes were needed to fund the legitimate activities of government at each level. The job of each level of government was to determine its legitimate needs based on its legitimate responsibilities and limits, and then raise enough revenue to pay for them. Ultimately, you can not understand Reagan’s views about taxes without understanding his belief in the limitations of the federal government. He often said during his race in 1976 that the tax base diverted to the federal government should be returned to the local and state governments, so that the dollars could be more effectively directed and spent where the local needs were. Over time, if such dollars were raised and spent locally, government would be more efficient and would cost less, so fewer tax dollars would need to be raised from each individual.

• One of the powers legitimately delegated to the federal government was national defense, and he believed in maintaining peace by maintaining a strong military.

• Reagan believed that much of our inherent strength came from our commitment to liberty at home, and that our most important diplomatic duty was to keep America as a beacon of liberty—as an example to others—and to defeat the biggest threat to liberty at that time—communism. He did not believe that every dispute in the world required American intervention; but most disputes at that time affected, or were affected by, the Cold War with the Soviet Union, so he believed in an active engagement in world affairs. His invasion of Grenada and his aid to rebels in Central America were messages to the Soviets and the Cubans, and his aid to Afghan rebels was part of his effort to defeat Soviet expansion. Even Reagan’s famed bombing of Ghadafi’s compound in Libya was a defensive action in response to an attack on American troops in Germany, and sent a message to the Soviets that any attack on our troops would be met with an armed response. However, he showed restraint and prudence when the Soviets shot down a Korean airliner with American passengers, when the Soviets tried to thwart Polish independence, and when our Marines were killed in Lebanon. He handled problems with our allies, including the peaceful transition of power in South Korea and the transition from apartheid in South Africa through diplomacy rather than confrontation. In the end, the accomplishments he set in motion were remarkable: the Soviets abandoned Afghanistan; the Soviet Union collapsed, Eastern Europe was freed, and the Cold War ended; South Korea transitioned to a democratic government and a free-market powerhouse; South Africa ended apartheid; and Nicaragua and El Salvador elected democratic governments.

• Reagan believed that the desire of people to come here, even illegally, was a sign of the strength of our beacon of liberty, not something to be feared. Although we can now see that the immigration law of the late 1980s and the grant of amnesty at the time, were wrong, they were part of a sensible approach to a problem from that vantage point, and recognized that it was our freedom—our ultimate strength—that attracted these people to become our neighbors, and that we should never abandon our strength out of fear.

• Reagan believed that America’s future would be strengthened through stronger ties with Mexico and Canada, and ultimately, with all of Central America. I don’t know how long he had held this idea, but by the time he opposed the Panama Canal Treaty, he was advocating a strong economic and political alliance with Mexico and Canada. His efforts ultimately were negotiated over his and G.H.W. Bush’s terms, and became the NAFTA treaty.

• Reagan was committed politically to the preservation of Israel, but also to building a balance of power in the Middle East in which Israel could live without fear and which would deter the Soviets from becoming re-involved in the region. I do not recall Reagan ever promoting our relationship with Israel purely because of its biblical importance, though I am sure one can find a sentence here or there where Israel’s place in our Judeo-Christian heritage would have been noted. In fact, such rhetoric would have inflamed tensions in that region and thwarted his goal of building a balance of power in the region. Reagan would have never abandoned Israel, but, as evidenced by his removal of troops from Lebanon, he did not believe our military presence necessarily made Israel safer.

• Reagan was a man of deep faith, and his faith combined with his knowledge of history and his political philosophy provided the foundation for his vision for the Republican Party and the country. Reagan spoke openly of his faith, the importance of faith to this nation, and the need for people of faith to be engaged in the “new” Republican Party. But, frankly, I think Reagan would have been perplexed by the level of engagement in the organizational structure of the Republican Party by agents of certain congregations and faiths, and by the exclusivity they have sometimes employed as criteria for participating in the GOP. Reagan always was clear that his was a political movement, not an ecclesiastical or ideological movement, and his blueprint for the new party he envisioned required inclusiveness, not exclusiveness.

Reagan was, at heart, a reformer, and he had a vision for reforming the GOP and this country. Although the times have changed (e.g.,there is no Soviet Union or Cold War, and the level of taxation is nowhere near what it was in the 1970s), and we have learned from mistakes during the years Reagan was President (e.g., amnesty is an inappropriate policy for addressing illegal immigration), I still adhere to Reagan’s vision for our party and our country:

• an inclusive view of conservatism that is based on the fundamental strength of character of individuals who recognize that liberty is comprised of both freedom and responsibility;

• the centrality of those individuals, their families, and their neighborhoods to the economic, political and social sustenance of the nation;

• the need for most social services to be provided by private organizations, churches and local governments;

• the preservation of strong, but limited governments at each level of government, with the revenue needed to meet their respective responsibilities;

• the preservation of our active role in the world as a beacon for liberty;

• the creation of a strong and lasting relationship with our closest neighbors, and their citizens, based on the strength of our liberty, and not on our fears; and

• the maintenance of a strong military here and abroad to maintain peace.

I hope over the next few months that the spirit of this vision will finally bring the GOP together as the “new” Republican Party that Reagan envisioned.

We can not wait to re-organize--the time is now!

This post originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics.

This past Tuesday was an active and interesting day. First, I attended the Greater Houston Pachyderm Club’s weekly luncheon and heard the CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership discuss issues related to the future of our community. Immediately after work, I visited with some friends at a fundraiser for a local official, where the key topics were redistricting, the initial proposed budget out of Austin, and the state of our mental-health system. Next, I attended the meet and greet for prospective GOP Presidential candidate Herman Cain in Webster. Finally, I got home in time to see the end of the State of the Union speech and the responses. After absorbing all that I heard I have some thoughts to pass along.

Charles Dickens summarized the era of the French Revolution as follows:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way …

He then went on to say,

in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

I think Dickens’ summary could apply to this moment in our history, too. If we are to avoid the consequences of that time, figuratively and literally, we need to keep in mind some critical points:

• We indeed are at a “cross-roads” (or “tipping point,” or whatever metaphor you want to use to describe it this moment) in our history, and we are going to have to choose a turn in direction—staying on the same path is no longer a viable option;

• The problems we currently face with the current path have been in the making for over 100 years, and will not be fixed by making a quick turn in direction;

• There is no Golden Age or Dark Age in our country’s history, the narrative for which will give us absolute guidance in making our choice of direction, but the principles that helped guide the settlement and creation of this nation are still the most effective guardrails for the continuation of our journey;

• We must be bold and courageous in facing and making our choices, while avoiding reckless decisions that could imperil our future.

With these points in mind, I want to pull together some thoughts I have written about recently into a proposal for action in Texas for each of us to consider. But before I lay out that proposal, I want to digress for a moment to something our Founders said.

Immediately after the reference to our inalienable rights in the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson wrote the following sentence:

That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Unfortunately, because the Declaration was written in the context of a revolution, whenever this sentence is quoted in the context of a policy debate, some people begin to fear that the speaker is advocating violent action against our government. But the Founders’ own use of this quote tells of a different intent. In at least three of the Federalist Papers, Madison and Hamilton both refer to this right “to alter or to abolish” the government, or even the Constitution itself, as a basic political right essential to republican government. In Federalist Paper No. 39, Madison discusses the provision in the Constitution providing for amendments as creating a blended process for altering or abolishing the Constitution involving both the people and the States. In Federalist Paper No. 40, Madison cites this right “to abolish or alter their governments” as providing the Philadelphia Convention with the authority it needed to draft a new Constitution, rather than just amend the Articles of Confederation. In Federalist Paper No. 78, Hamilton explains that, while the right to alter or abolish the Constitution rests with the people, neither the legislature, nor the courts can make laws that would violate the Constitution even if they say they are acting on behalf of a majority of the people.

Consistent with what the Founders said, I believe it is time for the people to demand that their elected representatives alter and re-organize government at all levels in a manner consistent with the original federal framework provided in the Constitution, which emphasized the primacy of local governance. This demand must be made knowing that the process will not be easy, and that it will take years—but it must start now. And Texas is the best laboratory in which to start the process.

To start this process, I urge the legislature to consider taking the following steps before the General Session ends in May:

• Adopt a budget based on the $72.2 billion revenue projection and on the current structure of our state and local governments through the next biennium; and, then,

• Begin the process of re-organizing the role of state and local governments from the bottom-up.

To accomplish the re-organization, I propose that the House and the Senate appoint a joint committee for re-organization, with sub-committees to address physical and mental health care, education, infrastructure, and the judicial and penal systems. Then, each sub-committee should work with a task force constituted as follows:

• For health-care, the task force should be comprised of county government officials, public hospital district administrators, and administrators of key charitable and educational hospital systems; and its focus should be on creating or maintaining community-centered hospitals and clinics as the primary vehicle for providing all public health care and financial assistance for health care in this state, and for establishing a local revenue stream for such a system to be administered at the county or regional level;

• For education, the task force should be comprised school board trustees and district superintendents, and community college trustees; and its focus should be on re-structuring the educational delivery system from the classroom up, on streamlining the school district network by breaking-up districts that are too large and combining those that are too small, on establishing a fair revenue stream derived from local or regional taxes to be collected and administered by the local governing bodies for the schools;

• For transportation, the task force should be comprised of city and county officials and transportation and flood control administrators; and its focus should be on streamlining the process for identifying local infrastructure needs and providing the local revenue streams and administration for such projects, and for the coordination of such projects with the transportation and infrastructure needs for the entire state; and

• For the judicial and penal systems, the task force should include county officials, judges, sheriffs, and jail administrators; and its focus should be on streamlining the appellate judiciary, reforming judicial selection, creating innovative monitoring systems for first-time offenders, and other issues to reduce the overall cost and increase the overall efficiency of the systems.

Then, based on the work of these sub-committees, a blueprint should be created for the next biennium that would redirect the administration, costs and taxes to as local a level as possible with as little state involvement or administrative overlap as possible. Each school district and county, as well as the state, should then be encouraged to create zero-based budgets based on this new blueprint, while the proper legislative committees should prepare enabling legislation or constitutional amendments that may be needed to implement the blueprint. This legislation should include a new sunset-review process that requires zero-based budgeting for each biennium at the state level, and zero-based budgeting at all levels of government.

I know, you’re now probably thinking that this can’t be done, so why even consider what I’ve just outlined. Well, consider this—three years ago, did you ever think we would win back the U.S. House of Representatives and gain a 101-seat majority in the Texas House? You see, the improbable can be accomplished if we have the will to do it.

If we don’t choose a path this bold, another path—the path of continued muddled, expensive and ever-expanding government—will destroy our economic future. The status quo is not only unacceptable, it is no longer viable. We must start down another path now. If we in Texas take this lead and show it can work, the nation will follow.

On the other hand, if you think we shouldn't take the path I’ve proposed, then what do you propose?

Reflections: What will we do the morning after?

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics.

Summer is over, another birthday has passed, and another of my daughters has struck-out on her own-in Austin. The Astros never really competed this summer-and said "good-bye" to some good veterans along the way-but they've ended the season showing signs of life for the future. My White Sox flirted with a pennant race long enough to make reading the morning box scores fun through Labor Day, and have since settled into their usual, second-place position. And the Cubs oh, well, there's always next year!

With fall upon us, politics is back.

I know for many of you it never left, but after the State Convention in June, I needed a break to re-charge my batteries after nearly 2 ½ years of campaigning: in September, 2007, I jumped head-long into what now seems like a continuous campaign that lasted more than 2 ½ years-first for a seat on a 10-county appellate bench; then to revitalize the local GOP; then to formally run for chairman of the Harris County Republican Party; and finally to help elect a new state chairman for the Republican Party of Texas. Even though I entered those campaigns with the support of my family and colleagues, and I believe my team, my supporters, and I made a positive long-term impact on our local party through these efforts, the shear length and depth of such a continuous commitment took a toll on my family and my work, because I hadn't structured and planned my life with an eye toward running for public office. As a result, I've needed to address this toll over the last few months with some long-needed vacation time and then a re-involvement in the practice of complex litigation. With the exception of giving a talk to a local club in August as a favor to fill-in for a speaker who had cancelled, and attending a few committee meetings, I've purposely stayed away from politics for a while to attend to family and work.

But, I haven't stopped thinking about politics completely. So, here are my reflections from a summer's rest...

First, we must finish the task at hand and win this election. There are only a little more than three weeks until the start of early voting, and six weeks until Election Day. While we still have a lot of work to do between now and November 2nd in order to win this election-locally and nationally-a momentum is behind the GOP and conservative candidates this year that I don't think there is time to derail. The biggest enemy now could be our own over-confidence (remember "President Dewey"?), so we need to complete the mission and get the vote out.

Then, when we wake-up on November 3rd, we must be prepared to lead, to govern, and to recruit strong candidates for the next election cycle. Let me give you my thoughts on each of these points:

We must be prepared to lead, with a vision that encompasses our cherished principles.

In my posts on this blog in May, June and July, I discussed an approach called "Renewing the American Community" with a focus on re-capturing a sense of Neighborhood and re-building our communities based on our conservative principles of limited and local government. I won't re-hash what I said in those posts, but I will recap this fundamental point: the original settlers from Europe established neighborhoods and congregations before they established governments. Successive waves of settlers governed their lives by being good and caring neighbors, and then later generations, culminating with the Founding Fathers, created governments to protect the society and culture the settlers had established. Were they perfect? No. Did they fail to apply their principles to all men and women? Yes. But, they built something unique in history, and the following generations fought amongst themselves to eventually apply those principles to all who lived here and came here. The story of the settler's creation, of the founder's vision, and of the following generations' struggles, is our heritage.

That heritage provides the vision we need to use to lead our communities, our state and our nation starting November 3rd. The men and women I've gotten to know over the last 2 ½ years in every corner of this region of the state, in every Tea Party group, and in every Republican organization, crave leaders who understand this heritage, who understand governments' proper role in preserving this heritage, and who are committed to work every day to preserve this heritage for our children and grandchildren. The men and women working hard to get conservatives elected this November need to hear of our party's commitment to this heritage, and of a plan for action consistent with our heritage. If we lead, these men and women will support us and work with us; if we don't, they will throw us out of office as soon as they can.

"The Pledge" that the Republican Congressional leadership presented last week is a good start, but doesn't go far enough. Republicans need a vision of action for not just the next two years, but for the next generation. To find it, we need to stop looking for new slogans, or trying to co-opt the slogans of the Tea Parties-we need to re-commitment to our heritage of Neighborhoods-of local action and limited government-and then fashion an agenda around that commitment. If we truly believe in the primacy of the individual and local government, that agenda must be built from the foundation of local government first. Continually focusing on the national agenda, though momentarily necessary because of the dire straits created by Obama's administration, is self-defeating to our cause in the long-run. Eventually, the national agenda must be drawn to complement and protect our local agendas.

We must turn from critics to problem-solvers and administrators, prepared to turn our principles into action and results.

In my last post on this blog on July 11th, I wrote about the "Tupelo Formula" for local action, which I broke down as follows:

•The community faced a problem that appeared intractable, and that had been confounded by multiple events-not unlike the confounding factors of under-education, under-employment, chronic crime and poverty, and the impulse to be "left alone", which exist in many of our neighborhoods today;

•One person, followed by a group of civic leaders, saw a strength within the community that created an opportunity that could be exploited to help the community address its problem;

•These citizens had the courage to take a risk with their own resources to take advantage of the opportunity and to share the gain with the community;

•These citizens involved businesses, private organizations, and local government in both the planning and the implementation of their plan; and

•The gains to the community were both short-term, and long-term, and were broadly shared-e.g., businesses were created and expanded, employment grew, per capita income grew, and schools improved.

I propose to our local conservative leaders on our school boards and city councils, and to our Republican officeholders at the county and state levels, that we sit-down after the election with other civic leaders, and begin to analyze and address our communities' needs through the prism of this formula. These needs should include at least the following:

•Our educational system, including the type of citizen we want to emerge from an elementary, secondary and college education in this state; the proper curriculum and delivery system needed to produce that citizen; and the most efficient and cost-effective mechanisms needed to pay for, account for, and administer that delivery system;

•Our transportation system and physical infrastructure, including a vision of where our citizens will live and work over the next 25 years; an understanding of how and where our goods and services will need to move; the maintenance cycle for all capital investments; an appreciation for the property rights of all Texans; and the most efficient and cost-effective mechanisms for paying for the needed infrastructure improvements; and

•Our criminal-justice and mental-health systems, including the effectiveness of such systems to protect victims, the public, and the person being held and/or treated within the systems; and alternatives that can reduce recidivism and improve the educational opportunities and long-term economic viability of the families and neighborhoods affected by the incarceration or mental-health treatment.

If we can address these issues, and create long-term strategies for addressing them at the most local level possible, we can begin to make government live by our principles while addressing urgent problems; and we can begin to address some of the most vexing structural pressures on our public budgets, which put upward pressure on our taxes and downward pressure on job growth.

Obviously, other problems, like the looming public-sector pension issue, will have to be addressed soon-but we need to start somewhere and show the public that our principles are relevant to modern life and modern problems.

To be the majority party, we must recruit and support strong conservatives to run for local, state and national offices over the next two years, who share our principles and are committed to use them to govern.

As I often said during my campaign for Chair of the HCRP, if we are the party that believes in local government, we must get involved in local government. This means fielding candidates now for the elections of 2011 and 2012. Remember, that in 2012 the local GOP will be the challenging party for countywide offices for the first time since 1996. Included among these offices will be between 30 and 40 local judgeships that will be open for Republican challengers, and we need to start finding competent, conservative members of the legal community to run for these offices.

But in 2011, many of the 416 local city council and school board seats will be up for election, including Houston's Mayor and Controller offices. Moreover, Utility and Emergency Services Districts hold elections each year. From just a rough review of the current holders of these offices, Republicans or Republican-voting independents hold already hold at least 40% of these offices. We need to talk with those officeholders, determine how we can help them keep their offices and how we can support them after they win. Most importantly, we need to determine who holds the other offices and recruit candidates who share our principles to run for those offices. Given the number of offices spread-out over 24 school districts, 34 cities, and many Utility and Emergency Services districts, this process must start now.

Finally, we need to continue the recruitment of new GOP precinct chairs-especially in communities where we need to re-introduce ourselves. For example, once this election cycle ends, those activists who have helped candidates like John Faulk, Fernando Herrera, Sarah Davis, Jim Murphy, and Steve Mueller, need to be actively recruited to stay involved by becoming precinct chairs.

If we can expand our presence in local offices and precincts before the 2012 election cycle starts in earnest, we will start that cycle with the army we will need to win that election and retake Harris County.

Although I have committed to my family that I will not run again for a public office myself, I am committed to the plan of attack I have outlined in this post, and will do all I can over the coming years to work with our party, our candidates and our elected officials to make the GOP the majority party in every part of this county and this state; and to not just cherish our conservative principles, but to use our conservative principles creatively to govern effectively. Will you help in this effort beginning November 3rd?

Campaign Video - The Time Is Now

Reflections on the last full week of this Campaign

What a week! As early voting has ended, I look back on this week with amazement.

Financially, we started the week at a draw with the incumbent with money raised since the last TEC report filing, and we ended the week with a draw when counting money received and pledged. That second draw was due to the infusion of cash from Bob Perry into both campaigns. Mr. Perry is a great benefactor of our party, whose money has and will allow both sides to take their message to Republican voters through Election Day—allowing the best message and messenger to prevail. My thanks and admiration go to Mr. Perry for his underwriting of the final stage of this race for our party’s future.

Turnout-wise, the turnout so far is surpassing most pundit's expectations. As I stood out at the early-voting poll in Kingwood on Friday, I was impressed by the steady stream of voters and of the education they had gone through to prepare for their votes. We will probably exceed 30,000 voters when the votes are counted on Tuesday night, and that is a great statement about the interest in our party and its future.

Politically, I have seen the breathless support and criticism from friend and “foe” (though we are all family) alike in this race as the week has proceeded, and with continuing questions raised about my history, my beliefs, my judgment, and my commitment to the Republican Party. One of the bright spots was when an old friend of high school not only found me on Facebook, but came to my defense and posted about my conservative activism even as a high school student--thanks, Jim, and good to hear from you after all these years.

In response to the criticism, let’s just say that I have never claimed to be perfect (nor my judgment to be infallible), but my commitment to this party, and to its unity and growth, is total. As I have reiterated often during this campaign, I will support the party if this race ends with the incumbent’s victory, and I have already started that process by committing to the RNC that I would help—win or lose—with the creation and implementation of a pilot program here in Harris County to grow the party into Latino, Asian-American and African-American neighborhoods and precincts, and to recruit Republicans to run for city and school board races.

I also hear and see the last-minute rallying around the incumbent, and the statements that I, and my supporters, are dividing the party at the wrong time, and are distorting the record of the incumbent. With that final criticism in mind, here is the question I pose to you as we enter this last weekend of the race: if everything that the current team at Richmond Avenue has done is so great, why am I essentially running even in fundraising with the incumbent since the last reporting period, and why do I have the support of so many party leaders, civic leaders, and conservative organizations in this race against a 4-term incumbent? This level of support for a challenger in a Republican primary is unprecedented—and it is unprecedented for a reason: the current team has been organizationally and financially floundering for years, and all the insiders know it, and all the activists can see it. The Obama Wave simply unearthed this truth for all to see.

Therefore, let me leave you with a paraphrase of Reagan’s immortal question: Are you Harris County Republicans better off now than you were in 2002?

If your answer is “No”, my candidacy has, at long last, given you a choice on April 13th for a different future.

Coffee with the Candidate

On Friday morning, from 9am-10am, I'd like to invite you to stop by for "Coffee with the Candidate". We will be meeting at Blue Planet Cafe at 1330 Wirt Rd at Westview (a little north of I-10), in the Bell Tower Center. Stop by before work for a cup of coffee, a latte, a juice or a breakfast treat, and we can talk a little politics while we're at it. After our visit, you can proceed one block up Wirt Road to the Trini Mendenhall Sosa Community Center where you can cast your ballot in the Republican runoff election.

Blue Planet Cafe is a real source of pride in our community. They are an independent cafe, on April 15th they will be celebrating their first year in business. Once a month, Blue Planet Cafe features a local organization doing good work in the community. A portion of the tips they collect for that month goes to the organization. But beyond just a monetary contribution, Blue Planet Cafe allows the featured organization to leave their literature for the cafe customers to peruse and possibly get involved. We are glad to have found a cafe, which by the way has very good food and drinks, that is putting principles we believe in to work by supporting a community and seeking people who help people, rather than government doing this work.

You can learn more about Blue Planet Cafe at www.BluePlanetCafe.biz.

A Response to Terry Lowry: We Republicans have a Choice for Unity, and a Choice against the taint of Pay-for-Play politics

For most of the 33 years since Ronald Reagan first proposed to build a New Republican Party with a coalition of traditional Republicans, economic conservatives and social conservatives, the great moral issues of our time have involved abortion and the institution of the traditional family. As serious as these issues are, they should not be used as a weapon at this hour in our history to destroy fellow Republicans.

We Republicans have struggled within our family over these issues because of the teachings of our respective faiths, and because of our commitment to the inalienable rights of life and liberty. Even when some in our party might disagree on where lines should be drawn in the political and legal arena, however, we generally have agreed that abortion is wrong, and that the traditional family should be protected. That consensus led virtually all Republicans to support the appointment or election of conservative judges and justices to state and federal courts, including Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Samuel Alito.

Unfortunately, there continue to be those among us who would rather pick and fight a civil war against our friends and allies in this party over these issues, rather than try to find common ground to advance our shared principles. I believe this approach is the wrong, and that it is self-defeating in the end. In fact, Reagan noted that this tension would exist within the “new” party he was proposing when he said:

"I want the record to show that I do not view the new re vitalized Republican Party as one based on a principle of exclusion. After all, you do not get to be a majority party by searching for groups you won't associate or work with. If we truly believe in our principles, we should sit down and talk. Talk with anyone, anywhere, at any time if it means talking about the principles of the Republican Party. Conservatism is not a narrow ideology nor is it the exclusive property of conservative activists."

For the last 15 months, I talked to our friends in this party about our principles, and about revitalizing our party to elect Republicans and promote Reagan’s agenda--but, I also listened. I heard so much about what we agree coming from people who had labeled themselves, or who had been labeled by others, as inhabiting separate factions within this party, that it gave me hope that we could stop fighting each other and focus on fighting the Democrats. I built on what I heard to form a coalition of supporters from every faction in this party, to run for HCRP Chair, and to successfully make the run-off election. At the core of what we built was the recognition that to elect Republicans we must grow, but to grow, we must first unite.

Unfortunately, earlier today, I saw the first salvo in this run-off election from those who would rather exclude fellow Republicans whom they have labeled as being in a different camp within this party—it was ugly, and it was a lie. It came through a Facebook post by Terry Lowry, a precinct chair, supporter of Jared Woodfill, radio host, and proprietor of the LinkLetter. I first met Terry in early 2008, and through discussions with him I know we agree on much: we support the platform of the Republican Party of Texas; we are pro-life; and we want to protect the traditional family from the political and legal assault promoted by Democratic-aligned interests groups. He knows that I am not an ally of pro-abortion politics or the “homosexual” political and legal agenda. And yet, he smears me by smearing some Republicans who have supported me—who want to unite all of the factions of the party like I do—because some of our friends in this party draw lines on these issues differently than I do, or Terry does. This politics of lies, smears, innuendos, and exclusion is beneath not only the Christianity that Terry and I share, but it also is beneath the principles of the party Reagan tried to build. To Terry, I simply ask: Have you no shame? To Jared, I simply ask: Do you condone this divisive conduct?

Why is Terry doing this? I don’t know, but maybe it has to do with the fact that last Thursday I dared to criticize his use of the LinkLetter (and similar mailers promoted by a few other individuals), to act as a self-anointed gatekeeper to the local Republican nominations. I dared to criticize his simultaneous promotion of endorsements and the sale of advertising in the same races, which has created the appearance to many that prospective candidates in our party have to pay Terry (and others) in order to have a chance of winning a local Republican primary. I dared to state that the whiff of Pay-for-Play should not exist in our party.

Ultimately, it is for you the Republican voter to choose which path to follow—Terry’s path of perpetual war with our friends and allies in this party, or the path I am offering. If you want to unite and grow around our shared principles and win elections, you have a choice to make between the politics of lies, smears, innuendos and exclusion that have divided us for too long, and the politics of unity against a common foe. If you want to rid our party of the whiff of Pay-for-Play tactics, and of self-anointed gatekeepers, and take your party back and make it the inclusive, welcoming majority party built on timeless conservative principles that Reagan dreamed of, you have a choice to make.

Endorsements or Spin? You be the judge.

You can tell that we are getting closer to the start of early voting—endorsements are flying, as is the political spin that surrounds every campaign. Ever since the C Club of Houston (now joined by United Republicans of Harris County) announced its endorsement of me, the fur has been flying at Richmond Avenue. Now, Gary Polland has weighed in—as is his right. Welcome to the debate, Gary.

As endorsements go, the incumbent and I are now even as to the former Harris County Party Chairs who built the modern Republican majority in this county: I have Betsy Lake, under whose leadership the county first went Republican; and Jared now has Gary, who built a strong operation upon the foundation of Betsy’s success. I am sure that Jared would concur that we are both proud and appreciative of these respective endorsements.

What is odd about some of the recent endorsements Jared has received, including the most recent one from Gary Polland, is that they are not really typical endorsements. Instead, they appear to be nothing more than vehicles to create or support talking points for his campaign. First, they contain short accolades of Jared’s ability to talk about public-policy issues, and of his service to the party, without much discussion of his overall management of the party, which has allowed the organization Betsy and Gary built to wither over the last 8 years. Then, these accolades are coupled with criticisms of the rest of us who are running. These criticisms are then immediately seized by Bill Kneer and Richard Dillon—two men who are supposed to be working for the party, not Jared’s campaign—who then use them as the basis to spin more criticisms on their Facebook pages.

Do Jared’s supporters really think that their approach helps the party in the long run? Although I find the issue that was raised about me by Gary to be fair game to debate, I have addressed my experience for this job—both politically and organizationally—for months, in public meetings, in emails, and on my website. I will let the voters decide whether the party’s problems can be fixed from inside the current HCRP “cocoon” with the same group that has run it into the ground, or whether it needs fresh thinking and action. Obviously, members of the C Club, United Republicans, and many leaders of our affiliated clubs and organizations agree with me that the party can’t be fixed using the current approach.

But regardless of the arguments made against me, let's all remember that this race is not about the 1990s, it’s about the future.

If you check the endorsements that I have posted, you will not see criticism of the incumbent (or anyone else)—only a list of people making a statement of positive support for me. That is how it should be.

Reflections on a Democratic Meet-and-Greet

Yesterday, at the invitation of a fellow Republican, I attended a meet-and-greet for a Democratic candidate who is opposing Sheila Jackson Lee. For those of you who follow Big Jolly Politics, and who may have read my response to Dan Patrick’s comments about the CD-18 race, this is not inconsistent with my position in support of our efforts in this race. Instead, it was designed to enhance our growth into this community.

The reality is that we have over 200 precincts in CDs 18, 9, and 29 (Lee, Al Green and Gene Green, respectively), where we literally have no organizational presence, but where Ed Emmett and Pat Lykos had some success in the 2008 election. My goal is to talk to those people who supported Judge Emmett and District Attorney Lykos, and build on what they started in order to bring conservatives in these communities, who now vote primarily for Democrats, over to our party permanently. You can’t do that unless you actually interact with them where and when they gather.

So, here are a couple of reflections on my experience.

First, there were Republicans (and independents who vote Republican) at this event, and I was able to talk with them about our primary and supporting our candidates. There is a lot of support for Judge Emmett and other Republicans among these voters. They are energized about what we are trying to do to expand the party and include them, but they are still listening to what the Democrats have to offer—we are no where near closing the deal with these voters yet for their support for our entire ticket.

Second, I learned what issues are being discussed in this race by the Democrats with members of the Latino, African American, and Asian communities. The Democratic candidate presented a largely pro-growth, pro-education message, which resonated with the conservatives in these communities. However, I saw that he is vulnerable over charter schools and school choice—the people in these communities want someone who will be strong in their support of these initiatives and he waffled. He also is vulnerable over how much he wants to expand federal programs into these communities. If this candidate doesn't beat Sheila Jackson Lee in the Democratic primary, we can use these issues to connect with these voters, who are obviously disenchanted with the incumbent.

Last night, I shared my observation with one of our CD-18 candidates, and I will share them with the other two soon, so that who ever wins our primary will be prepared for the general election campaign and for competing for the votes in these neighborhoods.

I know that there will be some fellow Republicans who may criticize me for going to an event like this one. But think for a second—how do you expect to learn how to connect with voters who agree with us, but who are used to voting for Democrats, unless we actually observe this type of event? Sometimes you actually have to go to where the opposition is meeting and challenge them with your presence. Remember, we didn't grow as a party over the last generation by avoiding contact with Democrats who agreed with us. In fact, such contact and conversion is how President Reagan, Governors Connally and Perry, and Judge Pressler, ultimately joined our party after being life-long Democrats, and that is how our conservative coalition grew. In order to attract them, we actually had to interact with them where they congregated.

So, let’s be clear: I do not support any Democratic candidate, nor do I embrace Dan Patrick's idea about creating a "Republicans for Jarvis Johnson" movement. Nothing "rubbed off" on me by attending this meeting—I am immune to the Democratic philosophy. Instead, I'm hoping my presence made those in the room who might support us realize we care about them; we are unafraid of going to where they live, work and meet; and we are going to compete for their vote.

Massachusetts, the Supreme Court Ruling and Future of the HCRP

Two political earthquakes struck last week: Brown’s victory in Massachusetts; and the Supreme Court’s ruling on campaign finance. Both developments were the result of battles that conservatives have long fought, and our immediate reactions to them were pure joy. However, as euphoric as Brown’s win remains, the Supreme Court’s ruling presents both challenges and opportunities to the Harris County Republican Party.

A wholly new political environment was created. PACs and 527 organizations are now irrelevant--and will probably disappear. Any organization--corporations, unions, chambers of commerce, trade associations, and issue-advocacy groups--now can freely publish endorsements, ads, and documentaries for candidates and issues. Right now this is a mixed-blessing for the GOP, because the left has as many, if not more, groups who are ready to independently spend money to support the Democratic Party and its candidates.

In the meantime, limits on candidates and parties are still in place, including: contribution limits for candidates; allocation restrictions for party organizations; prohibitions on coordinated campaign activities between candidates (and parties) and outside organizations; and the threat of recusal of a judge in any case involving corporations and other entities, whose independent advocacy significantly benefits the judge’s campaign.

The next Chair of the HCRP must address this new reality immediately. If I am elected, I will convene the best political and legal minds to create a strategy to take maximum advantage of this new situation, while helping our candidates and elected officials navigate it. As part of this new strategy, I will re-establish direct relationships with the business community. As evidence of my ability to build this bridge, last week I received the endorsement of the C Club, which is the first time the club has ever made an endorsement in a race for party chair.

We will need to treat the business community, as well as other pro-conservative organizations, as constituents with whom we work to develop our political agenda and support our candidates. I will create a strategy that is legal and ethical, and I will do so while we rebuild our organization to mobilize Republicans to vote in 2010 and 2012.

Old strategies will not be effective in this new environment. For example, our approach to candidate promotion must be more sophisticated than sending an ad-based “Chairman’s Report” by mail on the eve of Election Day. Not only are such late mailings ineffective when 75% of voters now vote early, but the current approach has allowed at least one Democrat to buy ads and has been designed primarily to benefit the incumbent chair’s re-election campaign. This must end.

In fact, let’s stop this practice now. The incumbent has just mailed a solicitation to all candidates on the primary ballot to pay for ads in a new “Chairman’s Report” for the primary. Let’s tell the incumbent that this practice is ineffective and improper, and challenge him to produce a Voter Guide that is even-handed and promotes the party’s candidates—not his campaign.

Let's take control of the new reality and use it to win elections, rather than continue the same, ineffective practices of the past.

Ed Hubbard
Candidate for Chair of the Harris County Republican Party
www.HubbardForHCRP.com