Author: Fritz Pettyjohn

According to Chris Stirewalt of Fox News First the other day, a political party is a mechanism which is used to win elections.  It’s just a tool, really, with no identity of its own.  Trump had the votes in the primaries, so he won the use of the tool.  Republicans who still resist him just refuse to admit they lost.

One of Trump’s Stepford Wife Spokeswomen was on some show, declaring that Paul Ryan needed to support Trump “…for the Party.”  As though it was his now.  As if he ever cared “for the Party” himself.  But now that he’s probably the nominee the loyalty he never had is due to him.

Curly Haugland, the National Committeeman from North Dakota isn’t buying it.  The Republican Party, when it’s assembled in Convention, is subject to no Rules, but those of its own choosing.  If the delegates don’t want to nominate Trump, they don’t have to.  Trump’s brain trust, Roger Stone, knows this, and acknowledges it.  That’s why he tried to intimidate delegates who might choose independence.

At the moment the will to take control of its own destiny seems to be lacking within the GOP.  But one thing we’ve learned — Trump is capable of anything.  God only knows what idiocies he may spout in the next two months.  Come Cleveland, maybe people will see the debacle ahead, and decide to dump him.  If it was up to me and Curly we’d do it, but timidity reigns.  If this generation of Americans was around in 1776 we’d still all be bowing to the Queen.

Cruz is hanging on to his delegates, asking them to go to Cleveland to fight for the Platform.  It will be interesting to see the Platform Committee at work this year.  Will it do as it’s told by Trump, or declare its independence from him?  Will the delegates on that Committee be men or mice?  On the other hand, Trump doesn’t really care about the Platform.  He’ll ignore it, unless it is part of a larger theme, which would be rewriting the nomination rules to prevent a Trump from ever winning again.  And also deciding for itself who the next Party Chair should be.  Essentially, the delegates in Cleveland can declare their independence from Trump, and take control of the Party.  Why not?  It might embarrass Trump, but no more than he embarrasses himself on a daily basis.

No, the argument against Republican independence from Trump is simple  — stop Hillary.  But as bad as she’d be, who can say with certainty that Trump wouldn’t be worse.  He’s an ignorant man, surrounded by sycophants, with total confidence in his own instincts.  He doesn’t need experts.  We shall see.

On cue, the WaPo was out with a front page story about Trump and Howard Stern.  Two thirteen year olds talking about women’s body parts.  Keep it up, WaPo.  I smell a Pulitzer exposing Donald Trump.

Polls right now are as meaningless as they were when they showed Bush 3 leading for the nomination.  The Queen Bee, the NYT, and all her hive lie in wait.  This fall they emerge in a swarm.  It’s going to be ugly.  He’s such easy pickings.

I got in touch with Jeff Golden of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, who’s working on Gov. Abbott’s Texas Plan.  What’s clear to me after three years with the BBA Task Force is that if you don’t have the money, honey, I don’t have the time.  There’s a ton of good, conservative money sloshing around Texas.  The TPPF has gotten in to some of it.  They need to get some serious, Texas money going behind Article V.   The Task Force would be at 34, or close to it, if we had some money.

Ton Llewellyn of the Task Force and I are working on getting Article V in the national Platform, and he tells me things went well at ALEC in Pittsburgh.  They may even have a donor.  A former backer of the Compact approach to Article V, which is deader than a doornail, has seen the light.  Why does it take so long for these money people to figure things out?

The last couple nights on my walk I’ve seen a peacock hen, and last night a big old cock was chasing her all over the hillside.  I kept hoping for him to corner her, and show off his plumage.  It was incredible how disabling all those peacock feathers are on a male.  Somehow this poor bastard has to make a living in the woods carrying a fourth of his weight in ornamentation.  The hen was plain as day, but she had what he wanted, and he’d do whatever she wanted to get it.

You learn important lessons about life in the woods.

 

The Republican Party has to decide to either embrace its nominee, or repudiate him.  Its decision will either destroy or save it.  It must decide, this summer, if it is the party of Ronald Reagan or Donald Trump.  It can’t  be both.

The Republican Party of Alaska faced a similar decisions in 1998.  Its Republican nominee for Governor was a fraud and a liar named John Lindauer.  The liberal media had not exposed him during the primary, but as soon as he won, it all came out.  The State Central Committee, on which I served, met to decide what to do.

Lindauer was our nominee, and some said we had to stand by him.  The GOP hadn’t elected a Republican Governor in 20 years, and incumbent Democrat Tony Knowles was vulnerable.  If we repudiated the man who won our primary, Knowles would almost certainly win reelection.  The argument was that while Lindauer most certainly was a liar and a fraud, he was our guy, and we had to stick with him.

The majority of the Central Committee disagreed.  Sticking with Lindauer meant that the Republican Party was about winning elections and getting in power, and absolutely nothing else.  So we condemned our own nominee and voted to support a write in campaign by the second place finisher in the primary, Sen. Robin Taylor of Wrangell.  Robin fought hard and well, and his write in votes exceeded those of Lindauer, who was on the ballot.  Lindauer plead guilty to some campaign violations and left the state.  The Republicans maintained their majorities in the House and Senate, which they’ve held ever since.  Knowles was reelected, but the Democrats have not won the Governorship of Alaska again.  Republicans today hold supermajorities in the Alaska legislature.

Ten years later the Republicans of Alaska made a different choice.  Their nominee for the Senate, incumbent Ted Stevens, was under indictment for corruption.  Former state legislator David Cuddy ran against him in the primary, warning Republicans of the danger of a Stevens nomination.  He was ignored, Stevens was nominated, and when he was beaten by Nick Begich the Democrats had their 60th vote for Obamacare.

Everyone who was at that Central Committee meeting in 1998 will never forget who was there, and what side they were on.  The true character of every participant was revealed, and is remembered to this day.    The same will be true in Cleveland.  What does the Republican Party stand for, if anything?  And what, precisely, is the character of the men and women who are delegates to its Convention?

What do they stand for?

Trump the man, and Trump the candidate, bears no resemblance to the President who, more than any other, defined the modern Republican Party, Ronald Reagan.  He was a true conservative, honorable, and a consistent and effective advocate of the Constitution.  Trump is the opposite, a raging narcissist and bully, contemptuous of the restraints imposed on the government by the Founding Fathers.  He won the nomination by appealing to the worst instincts of the American people  — tribalism, jealousy and vengefulness.

There’s a risk that Republican divisions this year will end up electing Hillary Clinton and losing the Supreme Court for a generation.  In fact, the only way of avoiding that outcome is by repudiating Trump and backing an Independent candidacy by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Mitt Romney, or some other candidate who has the ability to win enough electoral votes to throw the election into the House of Representatives.  Abbott could win the 38 electoral votes of Texas, and pick up 50 more by winning the Far West.  This is Trump’s weakest area.  His open opposition to the transfer of federal lands to these states, and Abbott’s endorsement (echoing the position of Ted Cruz) of it, would be enough to win these states, their electoral votes, and deny Trump any possibility of getting to 270.

The 12th Amendment gives each state one vote when there is no electoral college majority.  No state is required to vote for the candidate who won its electoral votes.  Every state, and every Representative, is a free agent, tasked with voting their conscience.  Clinton could never win such a three way contest, since there is nowhere near a majority of Democratic states.  The Republicans in the House of Representatives would make the choice, Trump or Abbott (or Romney, etc).

They would decide.  Every conservative in the country should work to give them that opportunity.  The alternative is catastrophe.

Fritz Pettyjohn was the Chairman of Reagan for President, Alaska, 1979-1980, and is a former Alaska State Legislator.  He blogs daily at ReaganProject.com

 

 

There are enough Republicans who personally despise Donald Trump to prevent him from beating Clinton.   As a man, he is loathsome.  But he likes himself just the way he is, and will continue to show the world his inner juvenile delinquent.  His fans are the type that cheer for football players who are little better than athletically gifted street thugs.  Sure, he may beat up women, but look at him run!

Unless we get an Independent candidacy from someone like Greg Abbott, things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.  Serious people like Paul Ryan know that we have no choice but to reform entitlements, but the political will isn’t there.  The deficits will at some point overwhelm the monetary system.  The Federal Reserve is just about out of ammunition, and the economy can’t recover without regulatory and tax reforms.  Money in the stock market is a bet on growth, and where do we expect growth?  A cheap dollar is a stimulus, but no solution.  I’ve thrown in my hand, and gone to cash.

The case for Article V has never been stronger, but it may be years away.  We’ve got 28 states for the BBA, and should pick up Arizona, Wyoming, Idaho and Wisconsin next year.  If the Kentucky House flips, which I still think is likely, we could be at 33.  Our nemesis in South Carolina, Sen. Hugh Leatherman, has drawn a primary challenge, and if he were somehow to lose, we could have 34 next year.  But after the rescission in Delaware we have to expect the same in Maryland.  So we would need Virginia.  A tough fight, but doable.  If we still have the House, it will aggregate the Resolutions and send them to the Senate, where Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will kill it.  At that point it could become an issue in the 2018 elections.

I called Gov. Abbott’s office, and was told he has no plans to push the Texas Plan until next year.  After the drubbing we take in November, more people may be willing to look at the Article V solution.  What else have we got?  It’s our last, best hope.  And as the politics of Washington devolves further into chaos and gridlock, it will become more and more obvious.  Congress is the problem, and Article V is the solution.  Abbott can raise the money, and if he puts some kind of organization together I’ll offer to get involved.  Working with the BBA Task Force for the last three years has taught me a few things about getting Article V Resolutions passed in various states.  I don’t see any reason why Alaska couldn’t be one of the first states to pass the Texas plan, and off we go.

Things are going to hell in this country, and everybody’s pissed off.  Everybody should be pissed off.  Ted Cruz ran a great campaign, technically, but he wasn’t pissed off enough.  I wonder what would have happened if, early on, he called out the Bushes, 1, 2 and 3, as the family that squandered the Reagan legacy.  Jeb was there, ready to get beat up on behalf of the whole clan.  But then nobody saw Trump coming, so it would have been risky.

I think a big lesson of this election is the death of Bushism.  And not a minute too soon.  Compassionate conservatism, represented by Bush 3 and Kasich, got its ass kicked.  If nothing else, the rise of Donald Trump shows that kinder and gentler is over.

God knows what the world will look like in 2020.  I bet it’s pretty ugly.  The anger and frustration with Washington will only grow.  Trump’s a one off, so we won’t be confronted with his like again.  You’d think.  But after this year, it’s more apparent than ever.

Nobody knows anything.

Mitt Romney was criticized for carrying a dog kennel on top if his station wagon on a family vacation.  As I recall, he was also accused of hazing a classmate in high school.  That’s all the dirt they had on him, but they ran with it.

In his long and tumultuous life, Trump has said and done a lot worse, and we’ll hear all about it this fall. But not just yet.  Only when he is officially nominated will the dogs be turned loose on him.  There will be so much to chew on, it will be hard to know where to begin.  Clinton and the Hive will ruin him.  He’ll react like three year old, and take down anyone too closely associated with him.  That means you, Senators Johnson, Ayotte, and Portman et.al.

One reason I was wrong about Trump was my belief that Rupert Murdoch and Fox News were conservative, and had the resources to expose the various sordid episodes in Trump’s life when the time came.  But they passed.  They weren’t conservative at all.  Foolish me.  Roger Ailes stands guilty of political treason.  I have more respect for the New York Times, meaning none at all.

When Jeff Bezos bought the WaPo I was intrigued.  His adopted father, whose name he bears, was a refugee from Cuba, like the fathers of Cruz and Rubio.  He has shown a bit of a libertarian streak.  I thought under Bezos the WaPo might distinguish itself from the Hive, and its Queen, the NYT.  But nothing of the sort has really happened.  He’s too busy with Amazon, or really doesn’t care.  Did he notice that Trump accused Rafael of being complicit in the Kennedy assassination?   Does he know the similarities between Rafael Cruz and his own father?  Does the possibility of a man like Trump having a shot at the White House bother him?   All he needs to do is gather his WaPo team and tell them it’s time to win a Pulitzer Prize, and take down Donald Trump now, before the Hive does.  It would make sense, but I suppose it’s like trusting Murdoch and Fox.  Money is what apparently drives these people.  You’d think they would feel some responsibility, if not as journalists, as Americans.  Silly me.

I wrote an article about the 1998 Republican candidate for Governor, a Trump type named John Lindauer, and submitted it to the Washington Examiner.  It’s an interesting story, which I’ll post here in a couple days.  It shows what happens when a political party has integrity.

Let’s say you’re Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, running for reelection.  What’s best for him, embracing Trump, and being forced to defend the indefensible, or supporting the Independent candidacy of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott?  If he supports Abbott, what will all the Trump cultists do, vote for the liberal, Trump-hating Democrat?  Maybe, maybe not.  If Toomey supports Trump, how do the independent women of PA react?  They should be disgusted that any spineless wretch would stoop so low for votes.  What if he just says it’s up to the voters to decide the Presidency, and takes no position?  He wants to return to the Senate to help keep the country half way sane.  It’s a hell of a lot better than being a Trump man.

And what about turnout?  There are a ton of voters who hate both Clinton and Trump, and they’ll stay home.  These are the voters who would cost the Republicans the Senate, and possibly the House.  We need to give these people someone to vote for.  We need an Independent, like Greg Abbott.

When Abbott announced his Texas Plan for nine Amendments through Article V, he said it was clear that the reforms our political system needs can only come from the States, via Article V.  Congress will never enact them, because they disempower the federal government, and thus Congress.  This is a man who has given a great deal of thought to our dire situation, and has the courage and ambition to launch an unprecedented  initiative to deal with it.  He proved to me that he was a serious man, and a patriot.

Will he answer the call of duty?

 

 

Ben Sasse won’t do it, so who do we want to go third party?  Someone with a fresh and exciting message.  An elected official from an important state, where a victory would go a long way toward throwing the election into the House.  A proven conservative, smart and appealing.  The man who fits the bill is Governor Greg Abbot of Texas, running to promote his “Texas Plan”.

He made a big splash when he announced it in January, but he’s got it on hold until next year, when state legislative sessions convene.  It’s like the Convention of States approach, except it’s far better.  Rather than have what is an essentially open Amendment Convention, he has nine specific proposals.  Most importantly, he does not have Congressional term limits.  As important as that is, it’s a deal killer in many state legislatures.  As much as anything, the inclusion of term limits killed any chance of success for the Convention of States.  I’ve been there, personally, and seen it happen.

What it does have is everything else a beating conservative heart could desire.  If adopted, it would save the Republic.  It’s worth fighting for.  The nine Amendments restrict all three branches of the federal government, and empower the States.  Abbott’s a smart guy.  The Texas Plan is a winner.  Regardless of what happens this November, it’s worth fighting for, for a long time.

The way to promote it is to run for President as an Independent.  You don’t need to form a third party.  Just pick a running mate (lots of good choices there) and get on the ballot in as many states as possible.  I haven’t looked into it, but I believe he could get on almost all of them, including, most importantly, Texas.  I think he’s got until the end of June to file in Texas.

And Texas is the key.  If he can win Texas and just a handful of western states, he could deny anyone 270.  The key to winning the electoral votes of the Far West is the Second Sagebrush Rebellion, which is well underway.  The American Lands Council is seeing to that, beginning this summer.  Win Texas, Alaska (an easy one), Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, Utah and Colorado and you pull it off.

I really don’t know much about Texas, or Texans.  I’m like Rooster Cogburn, when his young Texas Ranger partner started talking about drinking water out of a boot heel in the sand.  “I’ve never met a Texican yet that didn’t.”  But these people just had some of their own dragged through the mud by the Arsonist.  Most of these people know a little about Ted Cruz and his family.  They didn’t appreciate that unflattering photo of Heidi that he tweeted.  But when he slandered Rafael Cruz, a good man, who many Texans admire, I think he hit a nerve.

Greg Abbott and Ted Cruz know each other very well, going back to their days working together in the Texas Solicitor General’s office.  I’m sure their families know one another. I’m sure Abbott knows Rafael Cruz’s personal life history.  I wonder what Greg Abbott thought about Rafael being labeled an accomplice in the assassination of a President?

An Abbott candidacy could save conservatism.  It would give us all some place to go.  And it would forever ruin any chance of a Trump Presidency.  And I think it could help save the Senate.  There are a lot of states where a Republican Senate candidate would benefit, politically, from spurning Trump, and supporting Abbott.

Romney is said to be considering this.  But we need a fresh horse, one with no baggage, from the key state of Texas.  Everybody could get behind Abbott.

And if it’s thrown into the House, Abbott’s the next President.  There are no electoral votes in the House, and each state is free to vote as it pleases, regardless of the electoral outcome in their state.  It would be over on the first ballot.

There is nothing to prevent any of this from happening.  All it takes is a few good men.  And a lot of good women.

The spring has reached its zenith, and we’ll see summer soon.  If the summer’s like the spring, this is a very special year.