American Maggie

This year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), ended this past Saturday with a key note address by Fox News host Glenn Beck. Beck’s speech closed out what many call the “Conservative Woodstock”; three days of Conservative strategizing and speech-making. This year was no different.

Day one of the conference began with speeches by U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) and hopeful Florida Senator Marco Rubio (R). Both men received resounding applause by the thousands of attendees in the audience. Rubio in particular, who many view as the future of the GOP, delivered a passionate address extolling his beliefs in the American dream, limited government, and the necessity of a free society.

CPAC’s opening day also saw two major surprise visits: one by Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) who was introduced by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and later former Vice President Dick Cheney, introduced by his daughter, Liz Cheney. Other headliners throughout the three-day conference included Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN), Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), Newt Gingrich and former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.

The conference this year also had its fair share of confrontations and interesting appearances. One of the most noteworthy was the hotel-lobby showdown between new media mogul Andrew Breitbart and liberal investigative journalist Max Blumenthal. The whole thing was, of course, caught on camera and went viral in a matter of minutes.

Also interesting was a speech in which Students for Liberty Executive Director Alex McCobin was tepidly booed for commending CPAC organizers for allowing GOProud, a gay Republican group to co-sponsor the event. McCobin summarized that “freedom is a single concept that we must defend at all times,” and that most students are socially tolerant while fiscally responsible. The majority of the crowd applauded and cheered in support.

However, later that same day, Conservative activist Ryan Sorba was roundly booed and forced to leave the stage after he denounced homosexuality as immoral. He even went so far as to respond to protests in the audience by saying “The lesbians at Smith College protest better than you do. Bring it.” Let’s just say McCobin was left with far more respectability than Sorba.

But while CPAC 2010 stood out for its underlying feel of Conservative resurgence and optimism (and of course, hope and change!), there was a definite inner struggle on display between the Libertarian presence and the traditional GOP. Although the divide has almost always been present within the Republican Party, the Tea Party movement and Ron Paul enthusiasm have only exacerbated it. And this year, it showed.

This year, Libertarian groups like Students for Liberty, Campaign for Liberty, and Ladies of Liberty Alliance and other Ron Paul supporters made their presence known. In fact, it would be fair to say that CPAC attendees could be divided into two distinct groups: the group that stood in line for hours to get an autographed copy of Anne Coulter’s latest book, and the group that stood in line for hours to see Glenn Beck.

Anne Coulter’s group also cheered and chanted “Cheney ’12!” when the former VP made his surprise appearance, while the Beck group shouted the same thing for Ron Paul. But the division was not necessarily a friendly one.

After Ron Paul won the straw poll by a landslide, many accused Paul supporters of stuffing or manipulating the ballot box. The D.C.-based Politico even reported that a conference worker “rushed over to reporters after the announcement to make sure they had heard the unmistakable boos when the screen first showed Paul had won the straw poll.”

Nor were many Conservatives pleased with Glenn Beck’s concluding address, in which he compared the current state of Washington to a morning hangover. And according to Beck, the Republicans contributed to the mess just as much as the Democrats.

Beck even went so far as to liken the Republican Party to an addict that has yet to begin the road to recovery: “The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem,” said Beck. “I have not heard people in the Republican Party admit they have a problem and when I did hear them say they have a problem, I don’t know if I believed them.”

Ironic as it is however, Beck was extremely well-received. Rumors of protests proved to be unfounded and the boos were minimal at best- a far cry from the heckles Ron Paul was met with.

Yet the ideological division at CPAC should have been expected. In the wake of the Tea Party movement and strong losses in 2006 and 2008, the GOP has been undergoing some major soul searching; CPAC only shows that the searching continues.

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Amanda Carey is the Editor of The Tiger Town Observer at Clemson University.  She has previously worked for Robert Novak and has been published in Reason Magazine and The American Spectator.

In a recent op-ed in the Washington Post, E.J. Dionne posited the question, “So what exactly is the Tea Party movement and why has it risen up?” Disregarding the fact that Dionne is a little behind the rest of the country in asking that question, his answer is the same misguided response that many have come to expect from the left.

His argument is as follows: President Obama has really been a more moderate president; therefore the Tea Partiers can’t really be angry at his “socialist” policies. So, the movement is motivated by racism and radical anti-statism that blindly holds onto principle rather than facts.

While it is true that Obama hasn’t gone far enough to satisfy his far-left supporters, he has still supported and enacted policies that anger a lot of Americans. He supported the bailouts and the stimulus, took over General Motors, tried to push through what began as a very radical government takeover of the healthcare industry, and wants to raise taxes on wealthy. Not to mention the increase in federal spending and the out-of-control debt.

The passionate tea partiers however, do recognize that these policies began during the Bush administration. But they have also been carried on by Obama. That’s not the kind of change a lot of Americans were hoping for.

In light of that, a movement or uprising like the one seen today was inevitable, regardless of who is commander-in-chief. The Tea Party Movement is not a direct result of the man who currently holds the presidency, but of years and years of harmful and anti free-market policies. Obama’s election did not cause the movement; it just ensured its beginning. Thus, the liberal argument that the tea parties can be dismissed because they are only fueled by racial hatred is wrongfully dismissive and a sign of evasion.

Dionne’s second answer- that the movement is motivated by anti-statism that is a “profound mistrust of power in Washington”- is more accurate. But his reasoning is still misguided.

Dionne writes that “This suspicion of government is not amenable to “facts” — not because it is irrational, but because the facts are beside the point. For the anti-statists, opposing government power is a matter of principle.” Yes, standing up for limited government is a matter of principle, but it is not a position devoid of any facts.

On the contrary, people believe in limited government precisely because the facts of history say a limited government leads to a more prosperous nation. Furthermore, it is a fact that the Founding Fathers- federalists and anti-federalists alike- were all advocates of limited government.

The Tea Partiers are not blind to the facts; they understand better than most that ideas have consequences. Lack of economic freedom will weaken the economy, bailouts reward irresponsible behavior that will inevitably persist, and increased spending will eventually mean higher taxes.

However, amidst all the accusations and denunciations from the left, there is unfortunately, a glimmer of truth. Most recently, the Tea Party invited criticism by giving WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah a podium at their convention in Nashville, TN, to demagogue about Obama’s alleged lack of citizenship.  Then, they responded with resounding applause when former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) said that Obama voters could not even spell the word “vote,” much less say it in English.

The Tea Party needs to stop making it so easy for the left and the media to criticize and denounce a movement that had very legitimate beginnings. To do that, tea partiers will need to do some serious soul-searching and determine whether they are a voice for Americans concerned about the deficit, or for Americans concerned about whether Obama was born in the U.S. The latter position will only confirm the characterizations of writers like Dionne, who say the movement is made up of racist, radical ideologues.

There’s still time to course-correct for the Tea Party movement. But for now, it looks as though it may be ill-fated to become what Reason Magazine’s Brian Doherty calls “personality cult anti-Democratic party populism.”

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Amanda Carey is the Editor of The Tiger Town Observer at Clemson University.  She has previously worked for Robert Novak and has been published in Reason Magazine and The American Spectator.

Of all the news coming out of the Massachusetts special election over the past week, one story should be of particular interest to female political observers. As the polls tighten, the race has garnered national attention – and who is coming to Scott Brown’s defense? Not just the national GOP, the Party’s grassroots, and third-party groups like the Chamber of Commerce and the Tea Party Express – this week Scott Brown’s  own daughters may be his knights in shining armor, especially when it comes to women’s outreach.

A Coakley ad released earlier this week charged that Scott Brown “favors letting hospitals deny emergency contraception to rape victims.” Yesterday, the Brown campaign started running a radio ad featuring Ayla and Arianna Brown, who call the claims that their father supports policies that hurt women “out of line.”  In their ad, Brown’s daughters say, “Martha Coakley and her supporters are saying hurtful and dishonest things about our dad.”

In an interview with the Boston Herald earlier this week, Ayla came out strong against her father’s opponent: “Martha Coakley’s new negative ad represents everything that discourages young women from getting involved in politics, and as a young woman, I’m completely offended by that.”

We’ve seen this strategy before. Just last fall in Virginia, Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell faced charges that a graduate thesis he wrote twenty years ago suggested that working women undermined the family. Democrats tried to paint McDonnell as sexist and anti-woman. In response, McDonnell’s daughter Jeanine took to the airwaves with a TV ad defending her dad.

In the ad, Jeanine, a former Army platoon leader in Iraq, praised her father for encouraging his three daughters to be independent and achieve their goals. “He has worked to protect women and children from sexual predators and fight domestic violence,” she stated.

It worked. In November, 54 percent of women voted for Bob McDonnell. The Republican Governor-elect even won self-described working women. Of the 28 percent of women who indicated in the exit poll that they worked full time for pay, McDonnell won with 51 percent.

Is this trend of using campaign daughters a new GOP strategy for attracting women voters? It may be – especially if Brown is successful in garnering a significant percentage of the female vote in Tuesday’s special election. Unlike Virginia, in Massachusetts a male candidate is using the strategy against a female candidate, and it remains to be seen what impact Coakley’s gender and the Brown daughters’ ads will have in the polls that matter on Election Day.

In the meantime, Facebook offers a glimpse into grassroots excitement and momentum behind the opposing campaigns’ women’s outreach efforts. The Facebook group “Women for Brown” has 1,807 members; the “Women for Coakley” fan page, on the other hand, only has 110 members.
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Rachel Hoff is a young Republican activist based in Washington, DC.

Congressional Democrats claim that their health reform effort will deliver higher quality care at lower cost to more people. But their legislative prescription, which relies almost entirely on greater government involvement in the delivery of health care, would fail to accomplish these objectives.

Fortunately, there is a better way. With a few targeted reforms to our country’s medical-malpractice laws, insurance regulations, and the tax code, we can do a great deal to expand access to coverage and improve the American healthcare system for all — without bankrupting the country.

These basic goals of reform — expanding access and reducing cost — seem to have disappeared from the Democrats’ reform plan. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the leading Senate healthcare bill would actually cause premiums to rise for most Americans.

A legislative package that makes health care more expensive can hardly be called reform, especially when there are more effective ways of fixing the system.

For starters, consider how the bill would address pre-existing conditions, which often prevent people from securing adequate individual insurance coverage at an affordable price. Many congressional Democrats would like to require insurance companies to extend policies to all comers without regard for their medical history or health status.

States that have implemented such “guaranteed issue” regulations have seen premiums rise by more than 200 percent.

There’s a more prudent approach, one that won’t send premiums into the stratosphere: expand federal funding for high-risk insurance pools at the state level. These privately-run, publicly-funded insurance programs act as a safety net for those who can’t obtain conventional insurance.

High-risk pools already exist in 35 states. Expanding them to the remainder of the country would ensure that those with pre-existing conditions have a way of obtaining quality health care, without causing premiums to increase for all Americans until we have a fully functioning, competitive individual insurance market.

Medical malpractice law is another area that is ripe for reform. One in eight doctors is hit with a malpractice suit each year. These suits aren’t cheap — the average medical tort case costs a whopping $100,000 to defend, even though doctors are found innocent 90 percent of the time. To protect themselves in the event of a legal proceeding, many doctors practice “defensive medicine,” whereby they order more tests and procedures than necessary.

Such overtreatment increased individual health expenditures by $124 billion in 2006 and has added more than 3 million Americans to the ranks of the uninsured.

Patients who are wronged should be able to have their day in court. But with less than 15 cents of tort-lawsuit dollars going to compensate the injured, there’s clearly a significant amount of waste in the system. Implementing several commonsense tort reforms — including a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages — could reduce healthcare health spending by $11 billion, according to the CBO.

Healthcare reform should also make it easier for part-time workers and the unemployed to obtain coverage. Most Americans receive insurance through their employers — and don’t pay tax on the value of the benefit. Those who don’t get insurance through work are forced to buy an individual policy with after-tax dollars or forgo coverage altogether.

That’s unfair. Americans ought to be able to purchase insurance policies for themselves and their families with pre-tax dollars, just as businesses can. Such a reform would render health insurance portable, so workers could take their policies with them if they switched jobs — or keep their policies if they were laid off.

Another way to make health care less costly? Allow insurance companies to do business across state lines. Presently, Americans can only purchase policies approved for sale in the state where they live. This rule limits patients’ choices and curbs their ability to shop around for the best deal.

Removing those barriers would unleash a torrent of competition overnight, as consumers could begin shopping for insurance in states with more affordable coverage options.

A 25 year-old male in New Jersey, for instance, currently pays nearly $5,600 for a basic insurance policy. But if he were free to purchase coverage in Kentucky, he could obtain a similar policy for less than $1,000 a year!

Congressional Democrats may not be willing to admit it, but we can achieve health reform that expands coverage and lowers costs without placing government at the center of the effort. Commonsense reforms like these are a good start.

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Michele Bachmann is a Republican Congresswoman representing Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District. Sally Pipes is President & CEO of the Pacific Research Institute.