Response to a Response

Stefani Carter responded to an open letter from Ken Emmanualson of the Dallas Tea Party calling her to pull her pledge to Joe Straus for Texas House Speaker, making the point of how unhelpful Ken had been to her election. While true, it did NOT address the question of her instant signing of a Pledge letter to Joe, despite repeated input for the vast number of her volunteers on this issue otherwise.  Since she circulated her response to ken to many people, I responded to those same people with the following response to the response:

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First, let’s point out a few things Stefani (because I DID work for you AND brought along others to do likewise, not to mention drove the ‘TeaApproval of your group).

I would point out that Straus violated his own pledge card to Craddick to get elected in the first place. The entire Pledge Card system is- and has been- only honored out of convenience and frankly, it’s time for that antiquated system so rife with potential intimidation to go!

Were you impressed with the Ethic Commission hearing?  the one where Hughes, the accuser, took the oath (apparently both in the 2+ hour private session and in under 15 minute public session to make his accusations.  And the chairman- who received $42K from Straus- and did not recuse himself- allowed the accused to NOT take the oath to read a carefully written statement (as apparently is required, per this writeup by a group that was a significant backer of you)  Does this REALLY sound like the kind of stuff you want to be party to?  (As I said before, being Hughes was in Straus’s camp and all of this can do for him is political damage, there was no motivation except principle for him to make such an accusation.)

Your FIRST commitment is to your constituents and supporters; if they are publicly coming out in droves for you to back Straus and ‘the way things are done’, fine.  But if it’s mainly from a few Austin ‘powers that be’, please realize some of these are the same forces we did battle with in the primary up our way.   Not afraid to do it again, as needed.

‘Your word’ was given before the full scope of the mandate was known.  By keeping to this antiquated system your word that you gave as an Independent Conservative Republican is sacrificed. Because the message you are getting from ‘the conservative majority of the Party’- your first allegiance, supposedly- cannot be more clear.

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Her response was: “Thanks, Mike, for your continued thoughts. “  Probably the briefest statement you’ll ever get from an Ivy League lawyer (but still speaks volumes).

Forgive Them for They Have No Clue of What They Do.

I went to the Plano City Council meeting last night (I was specifically invited by one council member; they are looking into zero-based budgeting, which is exactly what they should be using).  Councilman Ben Harris walked by and said: ‘What are you doing here; we’re not spending any money tonight.” Classic political class snobbery; we Tea Party types get used to it.

At the end of the meeting I ran into him again and told him: “You just voted on spending over $1,270,000; perhaps you need to pay attention to what you do.”  He was really taken aback; he actually didn’t realize it.

The political class, even at the City Council level, really acts like the money just falls out of the sky magically.  That’s one way to tell them from the real public servants; and one thing to look for when looking to replace people on City Councils.

A Bit of Political Cold Water to the Face

I sent the following letter to the four Texas State Reps I worked to elect in this election cycle (all were successful).

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Well congratulations to you all; I’m sure you all have plenty of new friends this morning.  Let me try to bring you down to earth a bit with as much brevity as possible.  (First hint: your new friends last night and this morning aren’t really your friends, and that includes Joe Staus.).  Let someone who has no political ambition, goals, or personal financial interests in government (other than as taxpayer) pass on a few things.

This election wasn’t a vote in confidence in the Republican vision; it was a rejection of the Democrat rule.  The balance of power was not from within the GOP; it was delivered from without, by the Tea Party voter.  And, in two years, that bloc of voters (of which there is no one leader you can schmooze with) will deliver a judgment on you, based on your performance, not your party affiliation.  If you don’t perform in a consistent, fiscally conservative manner that matched your rhetoric in the campaign, look to have very tough contests, either in the primaries or the general election of 2012.  Get too comfortable with the Austin lifestyle- as opposed to that in your districts- and this new paradigm will very likely shorten your careers.  This ain’t your Daddy’s electorate anymore.

I note that Straus was your new best buddy starting last night;  let’s hope he didn’t soil his britches when he saw so many of his chairman buddies go down in flames.  Bottom line is that most of us Tea Party types consider Straus a weasel.  But to me, people are not nearly as important as policies and votes.  So, as long as his policies of ‘accommodation’ (which merely means rolling off the financial cliff at a slower pace) are gone, it really doesn’t matter to me if he’s Speaker.  Personally, I wish the guy had the dignity to ‘spend more time with his family’, but the narcotic of power is too strong for him.  It would help his cause- and yours- with the Tea Party types if he were to make some sort of public admission that ‘the ways in the past have been rejected by the voters and those of us who remain have gotten the message’.

You all need to realize that, if the GOP and its elected leaders go back to the same ol’ same ol’, two things are likely to happen: 1) there will be an unprecedented number of primary challengers next term for people like yourselves and 2) there will very likely be the creation of a third party based on the Tea Party voters, unstoppable by those of us of that ilk who know that would be a short-term mistake.

We AREN’T going away and we WILL be watching.

Well congratulations to you all; I’m sure you all have plenty of new friends this morning.  Let me try to bring you down to earth a bit with as much brevity as possible.  (First hint: your new friends last night and this morning aren’t really your friends, and that includes Joe Staus.).  Let someone who has no political ambition, goals, or personal financial interests in government (other than as taxpayer) pass on a few things.

This election wasn’t a vote in confidence in the Republican vision; it was a rejection of the Democrat rule.  The balance of power was not from within the GOP; it was delivered from without, by the Tea Party voter.  And, in two years, that bloc of voters (of which there is no one leader you can schmooze with) will deliver a judgment on you, based on your performance, not your party affiliation.  If you don’t perform in a consistent, fiscally conservative manner that matched your rhetoric in the campaign, look to have very tough contests, either in the primaries or the general election of 2012.  Get too comfortable with the Austin lifestyle- as opposed to that in your districts- and this new paradigm will very likely shorten your careers.  This ain’t your Daddy’s electorate anymore.

I note that Straus was your new best buddy starting last night;  let’s hope he didn’t soil his britches when he saw so many of his chairman buddies go down in flames.  Bottom line is that most of us Tea Party types consider Straus a weasel.  But to me, people are not nearly as important as policies and votes.  So, as long as his policies of ‘accommodation’ (which merely means rolling off the financial cliff at a slower pace) are gone, it really doesn’t matter to me if he’s Speaker.  Personally, I wish the guy had the dignity to ‘spend more time with his family’, but the narcotic of power is too strong for him.  It would help his cause- and yours- with the Tea Party types if he were to make some sort of public admission that ‘the ways in the past have been rejected by the voters and those of us who remain have gotten the message’.

You all need to realize that, if the GOP and its elected leaders go back to the same ol’ same ol’, two things are likely to happen: 1) there will be an unprecedented number of primary challengers next term for people like yourselves and 2) there will very likely be the creation of a third party based on the Tea Party voters, unstoppable by those of us of that ilk who know that would be a short-term mistake.

We AREN’T going away and we WILL be watching.