Randall, I can't help you with any polling data on the Alexander vs. Carr race, however I can provide some information on Alexander's voting record.
In 2012, Alexander voted in accordance with Obama's positions
62% of the time. This was more than any other Senator from the South.
1. Continuing Resolutions: Over the last four years (12 Continuing Resolutions) Lamar Alexander either voted for them, or they passed the Senate with unanimous consent. Obama signed all of them:2009- First Continuing Resolution Passed Senate with unanimous consent (H.R. 2638)2009- Second Continuing Resolution Passed Senate with unanimous consent (H.J. Res 38)2010- Voted
YES on the 2nd CR (funded Obamacare, H.R. 933)
2. Budget/Other Spending/Taxes[/I]Voted
NO on defunding the "Bridge to Nowhere" (S.Amdt. 2165 to H.R. 3058)
3. Bailouts[/I]Voted
YES to bailout Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (H.R. 3221)
4. Immigration[/I]Voted
YES for the Immigration/Amnesty bill of 2013 (S 744)
5. Guns[/I]Voted
YES to proceed on 2013 gun control bill by bring Harry Reid's bill to the floor (S 649)
6. Green Energy/Coal[/I]Voted
NO on a resolution disapproving of Obama's job killing Utility MACT regulations targeting the coal industry. (S.J. Res 37)
7. Miscellaneous[/I]Voted
NO to prohibit tax payer funded stem cell research (S. 5)
8. Nominations[/I]Voted to
FOR cloture on Tom Perez's nomination to be Secretary of Labor. Perez is a left wing radical Obama appointee who fought against voter ID laws and worked for a pro-illegal alien group. Alexander did vote against confirmation, but his vote for cloture paved the way for Perez to be confirmed. This is a common tactic used by Alexander. He will vote for [/I]cloture (thus ending debate and bringing the nominee or legislation to the floor for a vote) then he'll vote no. That way he can say he technically voted no, even though his previous vote allowed the bill to be voted on for passage. This is the same thing he did with the gun bill earlier in 2013.
9. Scorecards[/I]68% lifetime with
Heritage (Jim Cooper- Democrat Congressman from Nashville scored 47%)
- Average is 67% for Senate Republicans
Randall, let me be clear as to why I'm disappointed in Lamar. As Joe Carr has pointed out, Lamar has refused to join Ted Cruz and Mike Lee in defunding Obamacare claiming it would cause a government shutdown. But unfortunately, Lamar is not the only Republican who has been critical of Cruz in his attempt to defund Obamacare. Thomas Sowell has also been critical of Cruz and even wrote a two-part column that caused some debate from the right. Below is how blogger Patterico responded to Sowell's criticism of Cruz.
Sowell begins his piece by, essentially, arguing that Ted Cruz sure does talk purdy, but so did Barack Obama, and where did that get us? Sowell then quickly arrives at the crux of his argument:
Senator Ted Cruz has not yet reached the point where he can make policy, rather than just make political trouble. But there are already disquieting signs that he is looking out for Ted Cruz -- even if that sets back the causes he claims to be serving.
Those causes are not being served when Senator Cruz undermines the election chances of the only political party that has any chance of undoing the disasters that Barack Obama has already inflicted on the nation -- and forestalling new disasters that are visible on the horizon.[/QUOTE]
Sowell goes on to emphasize the stakes. ObamaCare has fundamentally restructured the relationship of the government and the individual. Hear, hear. I have said that in this space often. The new FCC plan to monitor how media makes news is another federal intrusion on freedom. Hear, hear. I noted this here days ago.
The basic, brutal reality is that the federal government can do whatever it wants to do, if nobody stops them. The Supreme Court's Obamacare decision shows that we cannot depend on them to protect our freedom. Nor will Congress, as long as the Democrats control the Senate.[/QUOTE]
Until recently, I might have agreed. After all, who is going to stop Obama, if not Republicans? But here is the problem, Mr. Sowell:
Republicans have not done a damned thing to stop this. None of them voted for it, true. But that was not good enough. It was still passed. And now, what are we doing to stop it? Are we dreaming that we will retake the Senate and the Presidency and keep the House --
and then, if we do, that it will mean something?
Tell me, Mr. Sowell: when Republicans last controlled Congress and the Presidency, precisely what did they accomplish to rein in the size and oppressive ubiquitous power of the federal government? During those golden years from 2003 to 2006, what government excesses were ended? Did we reform Social Security or Medicare? I don't seem to recall that we did.
Here's what I do remember: we passed a new prescription drug benefit. We passed some tax cuts but did not rein in spending; instead, we ran deficits of half a trillion dollars per year or more.
So yes, Mr. Sowell:
the Republican Party is the only party that could put a stop to what Obama is doing -- but the fact that they could does not mean that they will.
It does not matter too much who gets elected if they're not going to do anything when they get there.
So what is Cruz doing to hurt Republicans' prospects? Remarkably enough, Sowell doesn't tell us. But you don't have to guess, because (if you didn't already know) I will tell you. For one thing, he is
holding Republicans accountable for their decision to continue the temporary abolishment of the debt ceiling:
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz sat with eyes glued to his mobile device as the chaos he provoked ensnared his Republican leaders on the Senate floor.
Legislation to raise the nation's borrowing authority with no strings attached was short of the 60 votes it needed to advance -- a threshold Cruz demanded -- and without a few conversions, Republicans would be blamed for its failure. The stock market was watching. [
Actually, borrowing authority was unlimited before the vote and is still unlimited; the real issue was whether to re-impose the debt ceiling, which was suspended last year and was re-suspended earlier this month. I got this wrong several days ago and had to correct my post; this is probably worth a post of its own. There is no debt ceiling in effect right now; it is suspended and the country can spend anything it wants. -- P]
After what seemed like an eternity, a grim-faced Sen. Mitch McConnell, the party leader who faces a tea party challenge back home, finally voted yes. An equally grim-faced Sen. John Cornyn, the party's No. 2 leader and Cruz's Texas colleague, changed his vote from no to yes.
Cruz showed no mercy in exposing Republican leaders to widespread criticism from their primary challengers over a procedural vote on the debt limit after their pronouncements about the imperative of spending cuts. It could have been a simple 50-vote requirement, with Democrats delivering the votes to lift the debt limit, but Cruz insisted.
Pressed after the vote about what he made his leaders do, Cruz was unapologetic.
"It should have been a very easy vote," he told reporters. "In my view, every Senate Republican should have stood together." He added that the verdict on McConnell "is ultimately a decision … for the voters in Kentucky."[/QUOTE]
That is called holding Republicans accountable. You want to give Barack Obama free rein to spend anything he likes? Put your name down on that blank check so we can all see it.
The rest of Sowell's piece goes from unconvincing to just plain bizarre:
The most charitable interpretation of Ted Cruz and his supporters is that they are willing to see the Republican Party weakened in the short run, in hopes that they will be able to take it over in the long run, and set it on a different path as a more purified conservative party.
Like many political ideas, this one is not new. It represents a political strategy that was tried long ago -- and failed long ago.
In the German elections of 1932, the Nazi party received 37 percent of the vote. They became part of a democratically elected coalition government, in which Hitler became chancellor. Only step by step did the Nazis dismantle democratic freedoms and turn the country into a complete dictatorship.
The political majority could have united to stop Hitler from becoming a dictator. But they did not unite. They fought each other over their differences. Some figured that they would take over after the Nazis were discredited and defeated.
Many who plotted this clever strategy died in Nazi concentration camps. Unfortunately, so did millions of others.
What such clever strategies overlook is that there can be a point of no return. We may be close to that point of no return, not only with Obamacare, but also with the larger erosion of personal freedom, of which Obamacare is just the most visible part.[/QUOTE]
Yes, we are at that point.
We are at a desperate point. And the silly Nazi analogy only serves to reinforce that Cruz is doing the right thing. Sowell portrays Cruz as the one who wants to wait, but
Sowell is the one who wants to wait: he wants to wait until we "control" the Senate with 50+ Republicans, plenty Republicans in name only, who won't dare pass anything that means a damn.
Cruz says, by contrast, we have power NOW. We have the House NOW. Let's use that power. If Sowell wants to go full Godwin on us, then Sowell waiting for the Senate to go GOP is Stauffenberg waiting to assassinate Hitler until he gets Himmler in the room too. Cruz says: we have the bomb NOW, and if we're not going to set it off when we have it, then we may end up having to wait until we're in a room with some damned fool who kicks it with his leg. Why wait? If the situation is desperate then we fight NOW, and those who refuse to fight must be named and shamed.
I'm sorry, Mr. Sowell, but as much as I like you, this piece is rambling, odd, and totally unconvincing.
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The peerless Thomas Sowell is better at articulating principles of economics and freedom than he is at analyzing politics, and I probably share that failure with him. I'm about to criticize him again, but my intent is not to dump on this great man . . . and I hope I am starting to notice hints that Sowell "gets it," at least in part.
Sowell's latest column starts weak and ends strong, but the strong part undermines the arguments of the weak part so badly that the reader is left asking:
so, aren't you wrong after all, then? The overall impression is one of a column written by a bipolar person, who swings from one pole to the other during the course of writing the piece.
Sowell begins the column by attacking Cruz, putting some predictable meat on the bone of his complaints that crazy Ted Cruz is undermining the electoral prospects of Republicans. Cruz's sins? 1) Filibustering against ObamaCare and 2) insisting that Republicans attach their names to a vote to continue the suspension of the debt ceiling:
Senator Cruz's filibuster last year got the Republicans blamed for shutting down the government -- and his threatened filibuster this year forced several Republican Senators to jeopardize their own reelection prospects by voting to impose cloture, to prevent Cruz from repeating his self-serving grandstand play of last year.[/QUOTE]
Basically, Sowell is saying that Cruz done wrong by 1) taking a stand against ObamaCare at some political risk to himself and Republicans, and 2) insisting that Republicans be accountable for their votes on the issue of whether to rein in our insane debt. Those things sound good to me, but Sowell has a reason (if a poor one, in my opinion) for complaining about them: we are putting at risk the re-election of Republicans to the Senate and White House.
But then, Sowell spends the second half of his column explaining why these Republicans don't really deserve to be re-elected. He doesn't put it in these terms, of course, but the attack on the GOP establishment is fairly pointed. It starts off with Sowell's criticism of Republicans' unwillingness to articulate their principles:
One of their most maddening qualities has for decades been their can't-be-bothered attitude when it comes to explaining their positions to the American people in language people can understand. A classic example was Speaker of the House John Boehner's performance when he emerged from a meeting at the White House a while back. There, with masses of television news cameras pointed at him, and a bank of microphones crowded together, he simply expressed his disgust at the Obama administration, turned and walked on away.
Here was a golden opportunity to cut through the Obama administration rhetoric and set the record straight on the issues at hand. But apparently Speaker Boehner couldn't be bothered to have a prepared, and previously thought out, statement to present, conveying something more than his disgust.[/QUOTE]
Indeed. The opposite of walking away from the podium and failing to make an argument, by the way, is to stand up and make your argument in a very public way, designed to grip the public's attention. Something like, oh, say . . . a
filibuster. (Or, if you can't achieve that, a staged quasi-filibuster that resembles the real thing closely enough for government work.) Something like what Ted Cruz did, Dr. Sowell, that you are blaming him for.
At the very end, almost as an afterthought, Sowell says that maybe the problem isn't just messaging, but a lack of principle:
The Republican establishment has more than a tactical deficiency, however. They seem to have no principle that they offer or follow with any consistency. Their lack of articulation may be just a reflection of that lack of principle. It is hard to get to the point when you have no point to get to.
Ted Cruz filled a void. But the Republican establishment created the void.[/QUOTE]
Well,
yeah. Isn't that kind of the
point?
Here's the thing. Sowell's strategy is to get us in control of both houses of Congress and the Presidency, so we can pass a repeal of ObamaCare. But this is not going to be
easy. Millions of Americans are being given subsidies as part of the ObamaCare travesty. Electing enough Republicans to control Congress and the White House is
necessary to repeal ObamaCare, but it is not
sufficient.
We also need those Republicans to have spines. As I pointed out in my last post criticizing Sowell, we did not reform entitlement programs during the period when we controlled these two branches of government last decade. Why would it be different now??
If we have a GOP establishment that is too scared to stand up and make a speech about ObamaCare; if we have a GOP establishment that is too scared to either impose the debt ceiling or say why we shouldn't . . . then we have a GOP establishment that is going to be too scared to repeal a program that gives Americans huge handouts.
I have been right there with Sowell in the past arguing that we have to face some practical realities to get Republicans elected. But my attitude has changed as I watched the re-election of this President, the implementation of this disastrous program, and the constant stream of lies, unconstitutional power-grabs, and thuggery against enemies that we have seen from this administration. At this point, Christine O'Donnell could fly into Washington D.C. on a broomstick and I would cheer her on as long as she voted reliably for my policies.
I'm surprised and a disheartened that Sowell is unwilling to champion Ted Cruz, one of the few people in politics who seems to be standing up for the principles Sowell has spent his professional life arguing for, simply because there might be some short-term political risk inherent in Cruz's actions. Making a stand despite the politics is what we want in a leader. Holding politicians accountable for their votes is what we want in a leader. Standing up to Barack Obama's oppressive policies is what we want in a leader.
I hope there is a "Cruz Control Part III" that expands on the end of Sowell's column -- the GOP establishment's lack of principle -- and comes around to the notion that we need people like Ted Cruz.
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Randall, whether you agree with Patterico or not, at least you know why conservatives like me are disappointed in Lamar and all the other Republicans who did not support Cruz and Lee in defunding Obamacare. This is precisely the reason why I'm voting for Joe Carr for Senate.
This post was edited on 7/11 8:53 AM by nashvillegoldenflash
Thomas Sowell Criticizes Ted Cruz
