Brad Warthen makes an interesting point about John McCain and the Club for Growth:
[T]he Club's advice to the man who is getting nominated without it is that he simply must do its bidding in the matter of choosing a running mate ... To which I say, how come? He got past the hurdle that theoretically requires your favor without you. Your views don't amount to diddly among the independents he has to win now.
Mr. Warthen goes on to say that Mike Huckabee would be an excellent choice for Sen. McCain--the Club for Growth's protestations notwithstanding.
Although I agree with Sen. McCain's assessment that it would be "inappropriate and unrealistic" to dismiss Gov. Huckabee's campaign for President by entertaining discussions about prospective running mates, I find it amusing that the Club for Growth would dare to exert influence over Sen. McCain that it obviously does not have.
The Club for Growth spent millions of dollars to destroy the campaign of Mike Huckabee--probably more money than Gov. Huckabee spent himself. Despite this, Mike Huckabee exceeded expectations on Super Tuesday, and by doing so, he decimated the campaign of Mitt Romney--the Club for Growth's primary benefactor. (It should be noted that seven of Gov. Romney's top donors gave $585,000 to the Club for Growth.) Moreover, the Club for Growth viciously attacked Sen. McCain as well, accusing him of stealing a page out of Ted Kennedy's class warfare playbook.
As a result of Romney's departure, the two leading candidates for the Republican nomination are now men who owe the Club for Growth absolutely nothing. Yet for some reason the Club for Growth thinks it can boss at least one of them around.
The Club for Growth has demonstrated that it is irrelevant. It talks a big talk, but it can't walk the walk. MoveOn.org has about as much influence over the Republican Party. As such, the Club for Growth should be ignored.
13 comments:
I get stuff from the Club for Growth all the time, sometimes in e-mail, others in snail mail. It makes good material to start my kindling for a fire on a cold winter night.
If I had any pull with the Huckabee campaign I'd steer clear of any vice-presidential offerings. Mike has started a movment. I say we ride this wave. There's not only 2008, there's congressional and senate elections in the year or so following. We can elect a legislator here or there. Then, there's 2012.
School Choice. School choice is fine (in fact, downright laudable) in urban or suburban areas... but in rural areas (such as most of Arkansas) where transportation to private schools is scarce, school choice would hurt the poor.
If the nearest private school is 20 miles away where school buses generally don't run, then what good is school choice to a child whose Mom or Dad can't afford the gas to take him there?
Legal reform. This actually one area where I disagree with Gov. Huckabee. He pushed for tort reform in Arkansas. I wouldn't have.
In my state (MS), we have taken the issue of "tort reform" too far, making it cost-prohibitive for even the most worthy of plaintiffs to bring their cases to trial. As a result, insurance companies who hitherto would have been amenable to settling the more reasonable claims now fight tooth-and-nail even when their clients are clearly in the wrong. As a result, the plaintiffs who do not want "jackpot justice" but who only wish to be made whole, must settle for substantially less than their actual damages--especially since attorneys fees cannot be awarded unless punitive damages are also granted (and puntive damages can only be granted in certain circumstances).
Admittedly, there have been abuses on the plaintiff's side, but now we are moving the pendelum to the ditch on the other side of the road, effectively shutting the doors to courthouses for many worthy plaintiffs.
Replacing the Tax Code. Ever heard of the Fair Tax?
Huckabee is evil and this blogger has proven it pretty conclusively.
to land of da free: Mikes Fair tax makes 1,2,4,7 irrelevant and or obsolete. I know you supported Fred Thompson avidly. I know Mike was not your first choice, but why don't you give him another look.
Here is what Mike Huckabee says about school vouchers. No spin, you decide.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqYuflMjzOU
Here is the thing that I don't understand about the so-called "class warfare" criticism that you and others have used to attack Mike.
Warfare presupposes a zero-sum game, that one side wins at the absolute expense of the other. In economic terms, the end of class warfare is to take money from the rich to give to the poor, i.e. to make the rich poor and the poor rich. Of course, such rhetoric is usually reserved for socialists or communists.
Mike is not practicing class warfare because he is not trying to take money from the rich to give to the poor. He is not trying to "soak the rich" in any way. Not once has he spoken about raising taxes on the rich! All he is saying is that there are poor to middle-class people in the Republican party who have been ignored by the powers-that-be.
Think about it. The Republicans in Congress spent billions of dollars for earmarks. Who do you think pressed the members of Congress for such spending? Lobbyists, right? OK, who hires lobbyists? Certainly not the poor or the middle class.
The reason we have lost so much power in Congress is because our leaders listen to Wall Street more than they have listened to Main Street. To say this is not "class warfare"... It's constructive criticism.
That's a very good point. However, there is still a big distinction that we have to consider.
Wall Street deals almost exclusively with shares that are sold on the secondary market. When I purchase stock, I am not necessarily investing capital in a particular company. Rather, I am repurchasing capital that someone else has invested.
In the secondary market, all we are doing is trading paper. And sometimes the value of this paper has no rationale basis to the underlying book value for the company. Therefore, with the exception of investment banking, or when companies sell some of the stock they hold in reserve, the secondary market creates very little capital to the companies. On the contrary, the secondary market simply takes wealth from one person and gives it to someone else.
In light of the foregoing, on Main Street people create things. They produce services or goods that are sold on the primary market for other goods and services. This is in sharp contrast to Wall Street which merely is a vehicle for transferring wealth from one party to another in a zero-sum environment.
Beyond this, if it were not for Main Street, Wall Street would be mearly be another place on the map. It is Main Street that purchases/sells goods and services from/to the corporations whose stock are resold on Wall Street. Without Main Street, Wall Street would die... Conversely, without Wall Street, Main Street would still live.
Therefore, Main Street is superior to Wall Street. Accordingly, you cannot truly say that they are one in the same.
Just last week you were saying Huck's a real contender and know you're retreating to "he'd make a great vp" My, how fickle man is.
Huck has managed his campaign in such a way that has been downright dishonest and deserves no such executive post.
Fourfreedoms wrote:
"Just last week you were saying Huck's a real contender and know you're retreating to 'he'd make a great vp' My, how fickle man is."
The whole purpose of this article is not to extol Gov. Huckabee's virtues as a VP. Rather, the purpose of this article was to demonstrate the impotence of the Club for Growth.
If one operates from the presumption that McCain will be the nominee--which, by the way, I do not--it seems peculiar that an organization that spent millions of dollars attacking both McCain and Huckabee would now presume to give McCain orders.
Matt, you misunderstand stocks if you think that they serve no purpose in growth because they are sold from one investor to another without the owners of the "paper" actually producing anything. They do indeed produce something, a secondary market for investment vehicles. Without this incentive the availability of capital is greatly reduced. The people who do make actual investments often want to move on to the next deal, rather than waiting years for the profits to accumulate. Other people, who are not experts, wish to have a safer way to invest than taking the personal risk involved in business ventures, so they buy stocks. This is economics 101.
Acting as if "Wall Street" was a different "class" of people than the average 401k owner is envy politics at it's worst. Is envy no longer a sin for Christians?
In a free society Wall Street IS Main street. Over 50% of the American public are invested in the what you called the "zero-sum" stock market, to ALL of our benefits.
I would highly recommend Thomas Sowell's "Basic Economics".
To my anonymous friend...
Envy presupposes that one is in a better position than another person. For example, if I am truly envious of the Wall Street class (which I am not for reasons that will soon follow), then my envy would necessarly imply a certain belief that Wall Street executives are better than me (or if nothing else, are better off than me).
I do not envy Wall Street because, frankly, I have no desire to work 20 hours a day in order to earn money that I do not have time to enjoy; nor do I wish to spend so much time away from my family that I lose touch of my flesh and blood. Sadly, this is the cost of success for many in the corner offices of our corporate world.
The real question is not one of class envy... rather, the real question is which class (if either) is more important to the overall economy--the Wall Street class or the Main Street class?
Logically, they can both be equal, or Wall Street can be superior, or Main Street can be superior.
If Wall Street is in fact superior to Main Street, then clearly Huckabee's comments would be improper and wrong.
However, if Main Street is superior to or equal to Wall Street, then why are Huckabees comments derided for being the work of "class envy"? Indeed, superior classes do not envy the inferior, nor do equivalent classes envy each other.
Frankly, I think much of the talk of class envy comes from people who have traded paper, but who have not created any supply for the economy.
Think about it... where would the economy be today if everyone quit their jobs and started day trading online?
Come on, Matt, "what if everyone quit there jobs and traded online"?
What if everyone quit there jobs and became truck drivers, bloggers, doctors, or airplane mechanics? We would have way too many truck drivers, bloggers, doctors and airplane mechanics.
"Frankly, I think much of the talk of class envy comes from people who have traded paper, but who have not created any supply for the economy".
Let's try again. What you claim is not true. As I pointed out, the demand for "paper" investments,as you call them, makes the initial investment worth more. This provides money for people who "produce" things. It also provides an incentive for people to take risks in early business ventures, knowing that they can sell the "paper" to someone else later, after much of the risk has been eliminated.
Marxism is famous for it's lack of an appreciation for capital, indeed, "non-productive profits" are one of the oxymoronic lies of socialism.
The reason people are able to make a profit is because they provide something that someone else wants. Land, factories, computers, and giant machine tools are all things that are cost prohibitive for the individual. The farmer raises capital to buy a new tractor to raise more corn. While the person who lends him the money does not actually "produce" anything, he provides the farmer with the means to increase his production. The person who might purchase this "paper" has actually taken on the risk of the original investor. In an economy of almost 300 million people this is even more important, so that all types of goods may be mass produced.
Attacking "Wall Street" as a class of people is divisive and counter-productive. I don't remember Reagan EVER attacking the "rich" because (mostly) in America the "rich" earned it.
There is nothing more pro-Wall Street, more pro-growth, more Main Street, than the FairTax. While Huckabee often talks about the little guy and small business, he is talking about most of America. But if anyone doesn't think that is good for Wall Street people, then they need to truly familiarize themselves with the FairTax before dismissing it. And anyone who disagrees that Main Street has a lot to do with our economy, he needs to read some other economics book than the one they've already read.
BTW, someone said we would have to first repeal the 16th Amendment before enacting the FairTax. Not true.
Post a Comment