Campaign

Just when you thought the 2012 election cycle would be all about economic and domestic policies, the third rail of social politics — abortion — rears its head.

The latest chapter in our nation’s struggles over what to do about the topic unfolds out of Texas. The Lone Star State’s General Assembly has approved separate bills in both the House and Senate forcing women seeking abortions to also get a sonogram 24 hours prior to the procedure.

 Women’s-rights groups howled. Democratic lawmakers in the Texas Legislature cried foul.

But what were the complaints? Republicans pushing the bill said it only seems fair and right to ask a woman who was about to make one of the most difficult decisions of her life to a) think about it an extra day; and b) to at least understand that the fetus she was about to abort was in fact a living entity with a heartbeat. Is that so wrong?

GOP fundraising firms and political operatives are smacking their chops lately over the playing field that is shaping up in the U.S. Senate come 2012. For many, the reality that five Democratic senators would already hang up their spurs and ride off in the sunset never really crossed their minds.
 
Yet that is what’s happened in recent months. From Joe Lieberman (Conn.), a recovering Democrat who ran as an Independent, to Sens. Kent Conrad (N.D.), Daniel Akaka (Hawaii), Jim Webb (Va.) and Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, many stalwarts of the chamber are packing it in.

"States' rights, states’ rights, states’ rights!" — Rick Perry, governor of Texas, at the first Tea Party event on April 15, 2009.

To put it simply, the most astonishing thing that has happened these past two years is that the states have suddenly seen, as if through a glass darkly, that they do not have to do what the federal government tells them to do.

Consider the consequences. The idea seemed incomprehensible when it was first presented up here in northern New England five years ago. And backwoods governors up here, like Vermont’s Peter Shumlin today, saw themselves exclusively as pharaoh’s agent. Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) truly shocked comment when she was told she couldn’t do just anything she wanted was, “Are you serious? Are you serious?” Today, the Supreme Court faces state sovereignty challenges which promise to shake the nation.

Well, well, well. Now we know: Beneath the superficial self-confidence of Republicans discussing healthcare, they are truly terrified of Democrats offering amendments to their alleged healthcare repeal bill.

It would be fitting and appropriate for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to bring up healthcare under an open rule, or a bipartisan rule allowing several Democratic amendments. Looks like he won't. Looks like will break one of his major campaign promises to open up the House almost immediately after the swearing-in. If he does, Republicans will regret breaking a major campaign promise, and so shortly after the elections.

If 2010 was the “Year of the Republican Woman,” 2011 will be the “Year of Gender-Free Politics.”

In 2010, 128 GOP women ran for seats in the House (twice the number as the 2008 cycle) and 17 for the Senate. Nine new Republican women won in the House, and Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) won in the Senate. Every incumbent Republican woman won reelection. Three new Republican women were elected governor, and more than a dozen GOP women won statewide offices. Among these victories was the first Hispanic female governor and the first Indian-American governor.

In political campaigns, rule No. 1 is never doing anything that ends up hurting your campaign. It’s pretty simple. If you want to attack your opponent for unpaid parking tickets, you’d better have paid all yours.
 
In the earmark-ban era we are in now, Republicans are conflicted by their past support for — wait, I mean drunken spending on — earmarks. Last week I wrote about reports that the House GOP is considering repealing and replacing its ban on earmarks with something that allows what they call “member-directed spending” and exemptions for transportation and other priorities. The disarray on earmarks at the federal level is trickling down into nascent races for the U.S. Senate.

We are at the end of things. Again. It always happens just before the beginning. But in every turning, traditionalists fight against it. The Beatles land in New York, and the old school comforts the rank and file: They will soon get on the plane again, go back where they came from and everything will be like it was in the peaceable kingdom. It never is. The Democrats have been plagued these past years with the Clinton reflex and the Republicans are today with the Bush reflex. But the Beatles have landed. This time it is Sarah Palin and the Tea Party. And I can assure you that here in the New Hampshire back woods, where conservatism is a fireside tradition, Sarah Palin strikes discord in the heart of local conservatives, just as she does with Frank Rich and Barbara Bush.

The write-in reelection of Sen. Lisa Murkowski is a sterling example of what happens when a heavyweight professional does some serious work on lightweight opponents. While the major media and certain right-wing pundits have a fetish about Sarah Palin and try to take Joe Miller seriously, Murkowski took care of business, pulled up her sleeves and did some serious work.

For the last week, poor Miller looked like a dazed prizefighter being pummeled by a heavyweight opponent. What was most interesting was how Murkowski, once she disposed of Miller, turned her attention to Palin and did some more serious work.

When Murkowski said Palin lacks intellectual curiosity, everyone knew what she was saying. It was ironic and poetic justice that some of this was said to Katie Couric, who was present at the scene of the crime where Palin couldn't tell Couric what newspapers she read in the morning.

Give Palin credit, she has the major media by the short hairs when it comes to selling her books and giving her free publicity to make her fortune. Problem is, her negatives keep skyrocketing.  She will not run for president, though Democrats hope she does. Her candidacy is a figment of the imagination of what passes for commentary on what passes for television news.

The former Mayor of Wasilla, former governor who served only part of one term and disastrous candidate for vice president in 2008 who did great damage to her ticket, has now been taught another serious lesson by the tenacious hardball senator from Alaska.

Best of luck to Sarah Palin for her new reality television show. Her slanders of the president and first lady in her latest book will find a good audience among the hate-wing of the Republican right-wing.

Best of luck to Lisa Murkowski as she returns to the Senate, having taught some serious lessons to Sarah Palin and Joe Miller, who is now a footnote to a footnote, under Lisa Murkowski's foot.

Lisa Murkowski was finally declared the winner of the Alaskan Senate race over the official Republican and Tea Party-backed candidate Joe Miller. This race might not seem like much, but is a dismaying representation of how, when confronted with a candidate espousing principals they claim to hold dear, many people will instead choose the peddler handing out the most candy. To say this race was business-as-usual and a disappointing example of hypocrisy is an understatement.

Joe Miller’s platform appealed to this self-perception: Alaskans are tough people who value their freedom and want as little government as possible in their lives. Alaskans don't need welfare, their own self-determination and Mother Nature provides for all their wants and needs. Joe Miller declared he would take a stand against earmarks, pork and the way Washington works.

There were no Sharron Angle or Christine O’Donnell gaffs and bizarre statements from Miller; rather, Murkowski simply appealed to Alaskans' true nature as federal government moochers, and Alaskans gladly acquiesced.

With a population of less than 700,000, Alaska received by far the biggest per-capita chunk of federal stimulus spending. All told, Alaskans receive 8 dollars for every dollar they pay in federal taxes. If you thought getting a one-time $500 dollar check from the IRS was nice, try the at least $1,600 tax-free, per-family member — not just taxpayer — that Alaskans are guaranteed by Uncle Sam each year. At the same time, they do not pay federal taxes due to their native status.

Lisa Murkowski had to spend millions of dollars and doled out hundreds of promises that could eventually cost American taxpayers billions to retain her Senate seat. She reminded Alaskans of how much they needed the federal government to subsidize their Alaskan “independence.” Now, she is upset because Republicans are prepared to pass earmark reform. Fortunately for America, most Republicans listened to the people's cries for financial responsibility. Good news for America, bad news to the moocher state of Alaska. 

Armstrong Williams is on Sirius/XM Power 169, 7-8 p.m. and 4-5 a.m., Monday through Friday. Become a fan on Facebook- www.facebook.com/arightside, and follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/arightside.

For the immediate term, the Tea Party affected politics in Washington dramatically.

The outcry forced many liberal candidates to run away from their records or actively campaign against the Obama administration platform, like Sen.-elect Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who sounds more Republican than Sen. Olympia Snowe.