Month: November 2014

Article V is going to happen.  No doubt in my mind.  But when?

It is possible we come up short, even in 2016.  That won’t be the end of it.  We’ll hold the House in 2016, but it will take a favorable environment, and a good Presidential candidate, to hold the Senate.  We need a Republican Congress to honestly aggregate 34 state resolutions — no funny business.

We’ve got plenty of good Presidential candidates, and unless something fairly drastic happens, we’ll have a good political environment.  2014 showed that the Democrat national coalition is weakening.

Blacks —  without Obama on the ticket, the D’s will get their 90%, but with lower turnout.  And D’s better be damn careful about criticizing the first black President.  For blacks, he’s their guy, and they’re sticking with him.

Latinos — Obama is giving them amnesty, but I don’t think it buys their loyalty.  In 2016 they’re going to want a good economy, just like everybody else.  R’s may misplay their hand with Latinos, so they’ll be up for grabs.

Yutes — How the hell do you get a 20 year old excited about Hillary Clinton?  First woman prez?  Whoop-te-do.  How about a job?  Obama will have had eight years to get the economy up to speed, and not much to show for it.  Yutes wil be ready for change.  They usually are.

Asians — fastest growing minority, and the R’s split their vote this time.  Maybe it was that video of the Asian shopkeeper being knocked around by the gentle giant in Ferguson.  Maybe it was the realization that the D’s will sell them out to help blacks.  They belong in the Republican Party,and they will find a good home there.

Jews — We got about a third, higher than normal.  Obama seems to have a real attitude toward Israel.  He sees it as a white European colonial power.  His obvious distaste for the Jewish state will drive more Jews to the R’s.

Women — The whole war on women thing is looking weak.  Unless we nominate a whack job like Rick Santorum or Mike Huckabee we should do much better with women.  Senator Uterus in Colorado was the last gasp.

Whites — the migration of the working white man to the R’s is almost complete.  Romney didn’t appeal to these guys.  Any of the R field will do better.  Beginning in May of 2012 the D’s savaged Romney, he had no money to fight back, and he lost a lot of these votes in PA, MI, WI, OH.  I think the R’s will figure out a way to prevent that from happening again.

None of the above depends on anything Obama will or will not do.  Based on everything that’s happened since the election, he won’t do the D’s any good, and will probably do a lot of harm.

So 2016 will be good for Article V, and Republicans.  We will continue to try and expand the playing field, looking for wins, and total control, in the Maine House, Kentucky House, Minnesota Senate, Washington House, and Oregon House and Senate.  Potentially five new targets.

So, in the dreaded event that I’m still working on this two years from now, things will be looking good.

The wave has washed us ashore, and the wind blows strongly at our backs.

I figured Idaho would be one of those states that would have to wait until 2016.  Too many Birch-Eaglers.

My wife and I spent a few days in the Idaho panhandle recently.  I liked the locals quite a lot.  They seemed like my kind of people.  Politically hard core.  Really hard core.  It was where you’d expect to find Birchers, Eaglers, and militiamen.  I figured they even were stronger in Idaho than Utah or Oklahoma.  Back in February, our sponsor, Sen. Marv Hagedorn, couldn’t get the bill out of the first committee of referral.

Today Bill Fruth and I got a chance to discuss all this with Suzie Budge, NFIB’s veteran Idaho lobbyist.  A woman who obviously knows what she’s talking about.  She sees the political appeal of this issue, and thinks we can get it through the House; and if we can convince Majority Leader Bart Davis we can get the Senate.

Davis is no Andy Biggs.  He’s a lawyer, is not Birch/Eagle, and is open to reason.  We’ll get Natelson with him one on one and I’ll bet he’ll come around.

Lots of other stuff in Idaho as well.  Greg Casey of BIPAC for the establishment R’s.  Wayne Hoffman of the Idaho Freedom Foundation for the Tea Party R’s.

We can get Idaho.

Dysfunction in Washington right now is a good thing, from an Article V perspective.  If there were a bunch of adults back there, trying to figure out how to get us out of this hole we’re digging, people might want to hold off on something as unprecedented as Article V.  So I’m waiting for Ferguson Missouri to erupt in black violence.

This is a very bad thing, don’t get me wrong.  Put yourself in the shoes of the peaceful, law abiding people that live there.  Their town will be taken over by violent hoodlums and imported rabble rousers.

The big media won ‘t say it, but there are a lot of people who know why this will be happening.  Obama used Ferguson as a way to jack up the black vote.  It’s truly disgraceful.  You’d think there would be more thoughtful black people who would speak out about this.

Obama is serene in his faith that he is on the right side of history, that he is riding a strong current in a big river.  So he’ll stick to his guns the next two years, confident in his legacy of righteousness.  No give.  No backing down.  None of that half way stuff.

Hell go down hard.

We had a conference call on Wyoming last Friday, had one on Montana today.  Later in the week we’re doing Idaho, Washington, North Dakota and Utah.  Daniel Markels of NFIB set them up.

Montana’s the big one.  If we come up short in North Dakota or Wyoming, in the spring of 2016 we can ask the Republican presidential frontrunners to contact the Governors of North Dakota or Wyoming to call a special session to take up the BBA.  This would only happen, of course, if we’re close.  If we’re not close it may not matter.

Won’t happen in Montana, with a D governor.  So Montana is priority #1.  Everybody’s got limited time, and a tendency to spread themselves a little thin.  Not in Montana.  If I have to camp out in Helena for ten days, and buttonhole legislators, I’ll have to do it.  I won’t do it in Wyoming, or anywhere else.

It’s Montana or bust.

Article V shouldn’t be that big a deal.  The Framers certainly didn’t feel it would be limited to extraordinary situations.  But, for a variety of reasons, it’s never been used, and is treated as some sort of Constitutional quirk.  The Framers may not have realized that over time they would come to be revered as a collection of brilliant and patriotic men whose like we will never see again.  People look at today’s politicians and don’t want to let them near the sacred text of the Constitution.

So Article V will be used only when there’s no other choice.  I know some history.  I know Mark Twain said 130 years ago that America had no native criminal class, except for Congress.  I know that Congress has been even more corrupt than it is today.  But in 2014 we have a perfect storm — a thoroughly corrupt Congress, a President at once comically inept and imperial, a spiraling debt that threatens us with national insolvency, and an enormous Federal Leviathan that pushes farther and farther into our lives.

So — time for Article V.

The topic is timely because it appears in 2015 and 2016 — the period in which we’ll be fighting to get to 34 — things won’t be getting any better.  God knows what the R’s will do when Obama grants executive amnesty to 5 million illegals, but it won’t be pretty.  He’ll get away with it, but the R’s will revenge themselves.  Their base will be crying for blood.  We could be looking at two years of trench warfare in Washington, the area between the White House and the Capitol a no man’s land.

This is all good, from my perspective.  Article V can save this country.  But only if people are driven to it.

The epitaph of Sulla Felix 152-78 B. C.

No friend ever served me, and no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full.

Where I came from, south Anchorage in the early 80’s, Juneau Sen. Bill Ray was a bogeyman.  The first time I saw him was on the street in Juneau, when I first arrived there.  He noticed me looking at him, and didn’t like my attitude.  When the Senate Minority nominated me to represent them on Judiciary, Bill, the Chairman, refused to allow me on his committee.  I swallowed my pride, told Bill that it was all a misunderstanding, and he relented.  I was a good committee member, and eventually we got along pretty good.  He liked to tell me stories.

Especially about Mike Gravel, who he despised.  Gravel got elected Speaker back in the 60’s by promising the Rules Chair to two different guys.  Gov. Egan called everybody to his office to find out what the hell was going on.  He asked Gravel what the hell he thought he was doing, and Gravel said he had to do it — it was for the good of the state.

So Speaker Gravel and Bill are in Sitka on state business, staying at a waterfront hotel.  They’re checking out, and Gravel tells Bill to go back up to his room and get his bags.  So Bill goes up, opens the window, and throws the bags into the bay.

Bill was a very practical politician.  He told me he got a call from some Presidential campaign, asking for his help in Alaska.  Bill’s answer was short and sweet.

“What’s in it for me?”