Why Can't Republicans Explain Economics Like Reagan Did?

It is but one of many questions about today's Republican party and how Ronald Reagan did transform basic GOP thinking on issue after issue.
But one thing that eludes those seeking office is what is a fundamental difference between conservative economic policy vs. liberal/left economic policy.
This piece by Henry Olsen at The Corner on National Review Online seeks to remind today's GOP that a big reason why people who might be aligned with conservative economics but find those explaining it not so engaged with the average American, working man and woman.
As Mr. Olsen noted that Mr. Reagan made clear that all of America was involved in the concept of job creation. Essentially, Mr. Reagan made clear that he probably would not dismiss, out of hand, the labor union-backed efforts to get fast-food workers a "living" wage of about $15 an hour. He would use the opportunity to point out how the worker is as important as the entrepreneur.
What I see, and yes have been part of, is that most conservatives see the entrepreneur as the hero and the worker as some kind of lout. After all, the entrepreneur is putting his or her money on the line. The worker should be glad to have the job. Mitt Romney blew his whole campaign by saying the infamous 47% line at a private fund raiser that was videotaped by an intrepid lefty truth-sqauder.
Note to GOP candidates for office. Assume that nothing, not even a private fund raiser is private. Don't say anything that you would not say in any other campaign appearance.
I admit that while Mr. Romney had a correct point, it did kind of sort of play right into the hands of the class warfare warriors. I mean, Mr. Reagan talked about Welfare Queens. Yet with a negative, there was the positive with Mr. Reagan.
What the left has done with success is create the impression that they are always on the side of the worker. Maybe they pay lip service to the small businessman/woman. But when one looks at the modern Democrat party, they are in the hip pocket of the hip, lefty billionaire businessmen/women. Yet the Republican party is to this day seen as the party of the rich. Again, compare Mr. Romney and Mr. Reagan in articulating the basic economic message.
If you don't get that, here is the one time Mr. Reagan even discussed the entrepreneur in a speech in the 1980s as president:

We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we’re in a time when there are not heroes, they just don’t know where to look. You can see heroes every day going in and out of factory gates. Others, a handful in number, produce enough food to feed all of us and then the world beyond. You meet heroes across a counter, and they’re on both sides of that counter. There are entrepreneurs with faith in themselves and faith in an idea who create new jobs, new wealth and opportunity. They’re individuals and families whose taxes support the government and whose voluntary gifts support church, charity, culture, art, and education. Their patriotism is quiet, but deep. Their values sustain our national life.
Now, I have used the words “they” and “their” in speaking of these heroes. I could say “you” and “your,” because I’m addressing the heroes of whom I speak — you, the citizens of this blessed land.

There was no 47% reference I read. There was no us vs. them that the left promotes. There was nothing along the lines of class welfare.
What Mr. Reagan was saying is that anyone can be and should aspire to be that entrepreneur. But that the worker is as much of value as the entrepreneur.
Thus, what Republican today does that?
It appears that Sen. Mitch McConnell was sort of trying to do that in a speech at an American Enterprise Institute, AEI, conference last week.
I know, I know.
Why would I quote something from this RINO*? He is not a conservative at all! He is part of the problem.
Well, I think that Sen. McConnell fits the He's been in Washington too long category. But in my theory of the broken clock, which is right twice a day, Sen. McConnell stumbled into some truth.
This is the highlight of what he said. And a warning, he does take a swipe at Ayn Rand. But not really if you open up and read what he said:

And yet, I think it must also be admitted that in our rush to defend the American entrepreneur from the daily depredations of an administration that seems to view any profit-making enterprise with deep suspicion — that we have often lost sight of the fact that our average voter is not John Galt. It’s a good impulse, to be sure. But for most Americans, whose daily concerns revolve around aging parents, long commutes, shrinking budgets, and obscenely high tuition bills, these hymns to entrepreneurialism are, as a practical matter, largely irrelevant. And the audience for them is probably a lot smaller than we think. So I do think we’d do well as a party to get down to the basics. As Mona Charen recently put it, ‘Less talk of job creators and more talk of job-earners would be welcome.’”

I think that Sen. McConnell is correct. The average voter is not John Galt. Sure, they may get a lot of his overall point, but they don't want to get government that completely out of one's life. And many understand that a government that gets so big can take away a lot of what we come to know as rights and or basic forms or norms of everyday life.
I recommend reading Mr. Olsen's article in National Affairs that I have linked as a brief history primer and a good road map to getting the Republican party on track to explain what makes conservative economic policy superior to liberal/left economic policy.
Basic Republican governing philosophy is simple.
Government is necessary. But it should be a little and limited as possible. It should be bottom-up and not top down. Government is best starting at the local level, cities, counties and states. The federal government should be as limited as possible. It should not be concerned with Podunk, Iowa as much as New York City.
Mr. Olsen is onto something here. And another actual politician, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, also gets it.
That the GOP must be a party that working class voters and women can and should be a part of.
Hello?!
That is what we call today the Reagan Democrats. Most of those voters are already Republicans today.
But, what does the consultant class that dominates the current GOP think about those voters? Eh, not so much. Thus they push so-called comprehensive immigration "reform". They do not care to really explain how allowing many low-income workers to become Americans will help them. Hint: It won't.
When Mr. Reagan dealt with immigration reform, he at least had the stones to say it was amnesty and it was when the economy was in the middle of a full-steam recovery.
Reagan Democrats are out there for the picking. They will become good Republicans and already have a lot of conservatism already in their bones. They are the ones that sign up to join whatever branch of the armed forces. They are the ones that are traditional in outlook. Many are church-goers and temple-goers and mosque-goers. They do make for the best workers anywhere.
And they go beyond race. Anyone can be and is right now a Reagan Democrat that would love to look at the Republican party. But they don't look at the party because they have rightful misgivings about it. And no, it's not because of their stand on immigration policy.
It is because most of those that want to look at the GOP and are still Democrats and or "independent" still think that the party is the environs of the eeeeevvvvviiiiilllll, filthy, stinking RICH folks.
Of course I can show how untrue that is, but why use that? Because most of those people will not believe it. That at this point, much of corporate America is in the hip pocket of the Democrat party. It does not matter.
One needs to speak to the people in a way that Mr. Reagan did. And one of the reasons is that at one time, Mr. Reagan was a Democrat. He was at a time that Democrats were more like Harry S Truman and John F. Kennedy. That they spoke of a better America for all and not for a fill-in-the-group of the moment.
Of course it would be hard to find a lot of former Democrats that become Republicans and can explain a simple fact the way that Ronald Reagan did. And yes, how the United States is a great nation and that the sky's-the-limit, not a time of restraint and or malaise. And yes, that there are rights and wrongs in the United States.
So it does come down to people like Mr. Santorum to talk to the regular folks and say to them, yes, there is a place for you in the Republican party. Yes, I understand the economic anxiety you feel. Yes, the tax structure is out of touch with how every day people live. Yes, the United States has lost it's moral way. Yes, the United States is the greatest nation in the world and I am not ashamed of it.
It is because people like Mr. Santorum and Mr. Reagan believe those ideas. And yes, even Sen. McConnell finally treaded to that understanding.
Here is the thing.
The Republican party will expand beyond the White middle class when it can articulate that those ideas are not just the purview of Whites but of all Americans. We can not have one of the wealthiest men run for president and essentially write off 47% of the potential voting public as government freeloaders. And on that point, Mr. Romney had it somewhat correct. But it can not be done flippantly or off the cuff.
I don't know if Mr. Santorum is the one to carry the Reagan mantle in 2016. He currently has a great position being out of government for making the conservative case to a wide audience. Some like Sen. Marco Rubio have the opportunity as well.
But if we do not reach out to the next generation of Reagan Democrats effectively and in governing, the conservative cause and the Republican party will truly be on the margins of political life in the United States.

This Tea Party Candidate Can Not Be Supported

Matt Bevin is running for the Republican nomination in Kentucky for the senate seat currently held by senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell.
Mr. Bevin is being supported by the Tea Party.
But two reasons come to the surface that make me believe Mr. Bevin is not the candidate for Kentucky.
Before I continue, anyone that has read this blog with any regularity knows that I am a solid conservative. I supported Sen. Marco Rubio in 2010 before anyone knew who he was. I thought that Christine O'Donnell in Delaware was getting a raw deal in her race against then congressman Rep. Mike Castle. I backed Sharon Angle in Nevada and she actually ran a great campaign.
The point is that this is not the kind of post I want to write. I am a Tea Party Republican.
But what are Mr. Bevin's two sins?
Let's start with his support of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, better known as TARP. TARP essentially bailed out the big banks that over extended themselves during the housing boom and essentially lended money to anyone with a pulse. Mr. Bevin was the president of am investment firm known as Veracity Funds. And in a letter to investors, it appears that Mr. Bevin signed it and in the letter it supports TARP. This link to Breitbart explains the now tortured reasoning Mr. Bevin is giving in signing the letter. The bottom line is that Mr. Bevin was for TARP before he was against it. Here is an excerpt from that letter. The excerpt that I believe damages Mr. Bevin's credibility:

Most of the positive developments [in the market this quarter] have been government led, such as the effective nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the passage of the $700 billion TARP (don't call it a bailout) and the Federal Reserve's intention to invest in commercial paper. These moves should help to stabilize asset prices and help to ease liquidity constraints in the financial system. We have yet to see significant improvement in lending spreads (for the most part the opposite is true), but are hopeful that the groundwork has been laid.

OK, the letter essentially says that the wonders of TARP is what has been the positive development in that particular quarter. At the end of the paragraph it essentially says that thanks to TARP, the groundwork is laid to see improvements to lending spreads.
When one puts a signature on any letter, at least they should take a cursory peek at what was written. I think that Mr. Bevin is speaking out of all sides of his mouth. First he refers to the document as an "investment commentary" then as a prospectus. Now he denies both claims. According to this article from Breitbart, Mr. Bevin claimed that he had to sign the disputed document by law. However, if you read on, Mr. Bevin did not sign a similar letter in 2009.
Yes, this is in the weeds but goes to credibility as to what Mr. Bevin really believes and if he does deserve the support of the Tea Party folks. If Mr. Bevin is really going John Kerry on the Republican voters of Kentucky, being for something before he was against it, then as a supporter/member of the Tea Party, I could not support Mr. Bevin.
The second reason is this wonderful commentary as to Mr. Bevin's opposition to same-sex marriage. 
Yep, Mr. Bevin essentially said that same-sex marriage could lead to parents marrying their children for some kind of tax benefit.
I give you the particular paragraph from the Janet Meffered program:

If it's alright to have same-sex marriages, why not define a marriage-because at the end of the day a lot of this ends up being taxes and who can visit who in the hospital and there's other repercussions and things that come with it-so a person may want to define themselves as being married to one of their children so that they can then in fact pass on that certain things to that child financially and otherwise.

UGH!
Really, why did Mr. Bevin go there? To make the sheer suggestion that say a mom could marry her daughter for tax purposes. And otherwise? Why did Mr. Bevin have to add those two words? And otherwise.
What the hell does that mean?
I think it is open to interpretation. But one is already being done by the left. And that is suggesting that incest could be what he meant.
This is where inexperience comes to rear it's ugly head.
This could be Mr. Bevin's Todd Akin moment. And because of it, Sen. McConnell will probably cruise to winning the GOP nomination.
Republican candidates have to grasp this in discussing same-sex marriage. And that is don't go down the road of "because of this, fill-in-the-blank will occur". Why not do that? Because the leftywhore media and the Democrats, I know redundant, huh?, will make that candidate sound like a total whack job.
Mr. Bevin actually had a great point about the tax benefits same-sex couples would have equivalent of married couples. As a supporter of the flat-tax and no deductions, it would eliminate the tax code being used for social engineering. And it is done by the right and the left. It's really pretty bipartisan if you ask me. Taxes should only be an evil necessity to fund the government, period. That is a better argument.
Another point that Mr. Bevin could have made is that he is not in favor of redefining marriage. Because same-sex marriage does redefine marriage. The proponents have to be honest about that. All that Mr. Bevin could add is that the traditional definition of marriage, one man to one woman, has been the bulwark of Western society for roughly 2,000 years. And there is the inconvenient truth that Utah was not admitted to the Union as a state until it stopped polygamy. And a revelation came to the then president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that stopped polygamy and then Utah became a state.
I believe that if any candidate is running to try and stem the tide of same-sex marriage, they should speak with a bit of eloquence and no throw in bromides that will turn off the great middle that any candidate needs to win a general election. Then mere suggestion that same-sex marriage can lead to parents marrying children is beyond a bromide. The reason is that opponents have tried the worst-case scenario and people, even some conservatives that do favor same-sex marriage, find it out of bounds. And if we want to win elections and maintain principles, our side better damn well do so but with a lot more savvy.
The things are that the Tea Party is about curtailing excessive government spending and intrusion into our lives. When a candidate claims he opposed one of the fundamental reasons for the Tea Party's being, TARP. and it turns out that is not true, it seems like said candidate is going to be stuck spending a lot of time on defense. That would be Mr. Bevin. When a candidate expresses opposition to same-sex marriage and goes into one of the most bizarre reasons why, it sounds more that said candidate is not always opposed to big government. That would be Mr. Bevin, again.
If a Tea Party candidate is having these problems in the primary and somehow wins the GOP nomination, unseating Sen. McConnell, realize that this will be the left's number one seat to take. And it will be easier because of what is happening now.
I must admit, I am not a big fan of Sen. McConnell. He is way too cozy in the Washington Ways. Seems to always be willing to cut bad deals with the Democrats. But on one issue, Sen. McConnell was spot on and that was his principled opposition to so-called campaign finance reform. Especially the dreaded McCain-Feingold debacle. I would have no problem giving Sen. McConnell a primary if the candidate actually knew what he was talking about. Mr. Bevin does not.
The Tea Party has to realize this. What is more important is to have a credible candidate in November. And like it or not, Sen. McConnell is a credible candidate and Mr. Bevin is not. I don't want this to be a waste of time, money and energy.
Therefore I can not, in good conscience, suggest to people in Kentucky to vote for Matt Bevin for the Republican nomination for senate. And I am not endorsing Sen. McConnell. But Matt Bevin is one Tea Party candidate I can not support and should not be supported.

Sen. Mitch McConnell And With Friends Like This. . .

The senate minority leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made an unbelievable statement today that essentially said, go ahead and try but we probably won't be able to repeal the monstrosity known as Obamacare.
Good Lord!
What is wrong with this dude?!
I mean, while the irons are still blazing hot, this guy decides hey, maybe I should throw a jug of freezing cold water on those who think that there is really going to be a shot at repeal.
So, here is that jug of freezing cold water to those of us who want to fight for a senate majority and an eventual vote for repeal of Obamacare:

"If you thought it was a good idea for the federal government to go in this direction, I'd say the odds are still on your side. Because it's a lot harder to undo something than it is to stop it in the first place."

Really, Sen. Mitch?!
Well of course it would have been easier if one Barack Hussein Obama did not become president in 2008. And let us not forget it would have been better that Democrat majorities in the House and Senate did not balloon to near super majorities.
But that is the hand that was dealt.
Because of the way the 2,700 page monstrosity passed in the first place, a lot of the more serious aspects of the officially known Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will not begin until after the upcoming election.
So there is time if the Republicans do indeed increase their majority in the House, win the majority in the Senate and Mitt Romney is elected president.
But why is Sen. Mitch saying such things at this point?
Is it possible that Sen. Mitch has had a little too much time inside that Beltway? Because the comment does strike me as such. And one can make the case that Sen. Mitch is being realistic.
But what Sen. Mitch and the mealy-mouthed Republicans are not getting is this.
The American public in poll after poll, after poll, after poll, have given Obamacare a big fat thumbs down.
In fact, even after the supreme court decision that essentially upheld Obamacare when the 5-4 majority found that the mandate was really a tax, the American public did not like the fact that Obamacare was upheld.
Sen. Mitch, dude, get out of the beltway. Realize that the public wants health care reform. And even if some of what is in the current monstrosity is kept after repeal, they do not want what the federal government has to offer.
Sen. Mitch, how can you get a Republican senate majority when you make comments like this?
You can't if Team Dear Leader, Team Obama, gets this out on their communication platforms. Especially the Obamawhore media.
This is not brain surgery.
The public wants a do over. The only way we get a do-over is to get rid of those that forced this abomination on us in the first place. We have the supreme court ruling that the thrust of the funding for this, the mandate, is a tax. That is what we keep driving home. Day after day. Hour after hour. Minute after minute.
I want the senate to be a Republican one. What I don't want is a majority leader in Sen. Mitch that seems to not have a stomach for the fight. If that is the case, the first order of business after the election is to look at a new majority leader. One that will fight for repeal and replace. One that will not be afraid of the Obama/Leftywhore media. One not afraid of the Democrats. One that will not cut a deal but stand his or her ground. No more "nuanced" leadership.
Sen. Mitch, I hope that you clarify the remarks. I hope that you show the fight that you did in the McCain/Feingold so-called campaign finance reform.
The Republicans at all levels need to get this and get it good.
This is a fight for the nation. A fight as to whether we get a total socialist makeover in a, God forbid, second term of the Dear Leader, President Obama. We can not treat this as just another election when it is not.
We Republicans need to heed the words of former Pennsylvania senator, Rick Santorum, who urged supporters to join the fight. It is a fight and we better bring big guns and not a kitchen knife. Team Dear Leader plays for keeps. We conservative Republicans must do that and more.
Because with friends like Sen. Mitch McConnell, well I am not all that confident that he realizes what is at stake.