Yin And Yang

This post has been a long time in the making. I am just now getting to it in large part just because life has been so insane in the Logical Household, but also in part due to a discussion I had yesterday with my dear friend Sue Jeffers.

The battle lines are being drawn, in the debate on how to take the Republican Party forward. On one side you have the staunch ideologs - the ones who would just as soon lose a political race as long as their guy voted on principle and on the other you have the strategists - the pragmatists who argue that you have to be in the majority in order to drive the agenda.

Ideologs will tell you that principle must win out over every other consideration. While I do agree with them that you are nothing without your principles, you can still stick to your principles AND be smart about how you present those principles. That is where this discussion is going to end.

First off a definition. A RINO is someone line Linc Chaffee or Chuck Hagel - someone who rarely votes or caucuses with the Republican Party. A RINO is NOT someone who voted one time against the ideologs stand on an issue. Ron Erhardt...RINO. Mike Beard - not RINO.

Second - RON CAREY MUST GO!!!!! Ron Carey (MNGOP Chair) is singularly responsible for the loss of the Republican Majority in the House in 2006, more seats in 2008 AND the loss of Norm Coleman's Senate seat. It was HIS decision to take his bully pulpit and his soap box and trade them in for a snipers rifle - and Ron Carey is NO SNIPER. Instead of telling the voters of Minnesota what Republican values were, he slimed Democrats with the zeal of televangelist going a buck.

Two of my best friends in Minnesota represent each side of the debate. Sue Jeffers from the ideological side and Gary Gross from the strategist/pragmatist side.

Now my good friend Gary (in a post titled "Hunting RINO Hunters") takes my other good friend, Sue Jeffers to task for being a RINO hunter. However, as I have reminded Gary a time or three - the party does need people like Sue and Jason Lewis out there DEFINING Republican principles - especially since the chairman of both the state and the national parties have walked away from their bully pulpits. Someone needs to step up and fill in the vacuum!

Now to my good friend Sue, in a series of emails with me, took much of what Gary said to task. Her response was that we simply can not forsake our principles for political expediency.

Both are right - to an extent. If Republicans sacrifice their principles for that 50% + 1 strategy...well we've seen how well that has worked in the last three election cycles, haven't we.... On the other hand, Gary is right in that we can not drive the agenda from the minority. Take a look at what went unreported last Monday - on the eve of the new House session.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to re-write House rules today to ensure that the Republican minority is unable to have any influence on legislation. Pelosi’s proposals are so draconian, and will so polarize the Capitol, that any thought President-elect Obama has of bipartisan cooperation will be rendered impossible before he even takes office.

One of the frustrations that many good conservative legislators share can be summed up by my good friend, Representative Mike Beard. Mike is conservative as they come - just look at his lifetime voting record. Mike has expressed to me (many times) his frustrations at not being able to influence the agenda at all - especially this year with the stakes so high. He reminded me that even when Republicans did control the House (in his first two years), the DFL controlled and stymied many of the reforms that they (the House Republican Caucus) and Governor Pawlenty wanted to enact. What's worse is the DFL actually managed (with the help of a willing media) managed to make it seem like the House Republicans were the problem. What the House Republican caucus needed was someone who could help put out the Republican message - but then chair Ron Eibensteiner was under suspicion for fraud. Even though he was eventually acquitted, he could not appear in the press without the tag "accused of fraud" following his name. Where Ron E. worked with the Governor and the House to help craft and distribute a cohesive message, Ron C has abandoned that responsibility - instead leaving the message crafting to bloggers, talk radio hosts and leaving the House and Senate caucuses to fend for themselves.

With all of this in mind, what do we do to move forward. The continued infighting and drawing lines in the sand will only ensure that we lose more seats to retirement. Many of our good Republican stalwarts (like Chris DeLaForest who retired just last year) are retiring because they are just worn down. They are finding less stressful jobs in the private sector.

The bottom line is getting the majority back and in order to do it the ideologs and the pragmatists are going to have to figure out how to work together toward a common goal. The Democrats do that right now. There are many "DINOs" in the House DFL caucus who are only out of expedience. The Democratic leadership tolerates them because they know that those people guarantee them the majority. I heard tell of a story where, Speaker Margaret Anderson-Kelliher actually went to an outstate BPOU to tell them not to challenge their rather DINO-like representative with a hard core leftist! Even she understands that there is a time and a place for ideology.

Mark Buesgens will never get elected in Phyllis Kahn's district. Laura Brod will probably not get elected in Ann Lenczewski's district either. However, put up a Steve Gottwalt or a Mike Beard in those districts and you just might win a seat. It not just a matter of the ideals that you put up it is how you present them. In some situations, a flame throwing jackhammer is the tool of choice - in others fine grit sandpaper. Don't discount the use of the sandpaper just because you prefer the jackhammer. As long as the end result is the same....

It's the yin and the yang of life and politics.