Inclusiveness: By Invitation Only

Posted on March 11, 2013 by

By Ken Feltman

You cannot teach an old dogma new tricks.

-Dorothy Parker

Years ago, I decided that if a telling comment was not from the Bible or Shakespeare, odds favored it being from Dorothy Parker. Parker wrote for Vanity Fair and then for the New Yorker and co-founded the Algonquin Round Table in 1919. The Round Table included, among others, Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott, Harpo Marx, Edna Ferber, Robert Sherwood, Margaret Leech Pulitzer, Charlie MacArthur, Herman Mankiewicz and George S. Kaufman.

Saucy and irreverent, she shocked and amused readers. But when people read what she wrote, they laughed, winced and often thought, “how true.”

  • “The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.”  
  • “If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.”  
  • “Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.” (A drama critic in New York remarked that after Parker wrote that, he began to notice more young women groping their way along, eschewing glasses and risking the consequences.) 

Now, 45 years after her death, her prolific, biting wit sums up the current state of the Republican Party better than any contemporary talking head. No living pundit is her match. The moment you read her comments, you know she is right. In the present case, she even tells us what to do to fix things.

Look where the old dogma got us. Parker has a witty, if sad, way to describe the Mitt Romney-led slaughter:

“This was not just plain terrible,

this was fancy terrible.

This was terrible with raisins in it.” 

The Romney voter turnout program was called ORCA, after the killer whale. This orca had no bite, the pollsters had no clue, the consultants had no coordinated plan. This was terrible with raisins in it.

So what to do? First, ignore the current leadership of the GOP. Parker has summed up their ability to get anything done: 

This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly.

It should be thrown aside with great force.

Enough of the talking-head bloviating. Rebuilding the GOP is going to happen only if people pitch in and do it from the ground up. The rebuilding must happen despite the oblivious leadership.

Do they like being losers?

You would think they want to lose, the way they avoid anything that might help them rebuild the party. No, they would rather win, but they are demonstrating that they do not know what to do. So how can Republicans get new leaders? That is not so easy. The current leaders like being mired in their chumminess and little intrigues. They have no idea how incapable they are at leading the GOP in these times. Parker had a poem for them:

“If I did not care for fun and such,

I would probably amount to much.

But I shall stay the way I am,

Because I do not give a damn.”

The national chairman of the Republican Party just made a visit to Iowa to talk about “inclusion and expanding the party.” His visit illustrates his clueless nature. It never occurred to him that a by-invitation-only meeting, attended exclusively by people from the well-to-do inner circle, is an unlikely place to make progress toward inclusiveness.

Here is what I Tweeted about the meeting: GOP chair to INVITATION-ONLY guests at Iowa GOP HQ: We need new strategy. I heard from a lot of angry Republicans, mostly of the how-could-you? and which-side-are-you-on? variety. But I heard from more who identified themselves as current or former Republicans and agree with me, many noting in different ways that they feel alienated by the GOP today.

When does the inclusion start and the exclusion stop? Not when a man like former Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Okla.) comes along and expresses his concerns. Watts ran one of the most efficient, friendly and helpful offices on Capitol Hill before he retired from Congress. He attacked problems head on. He still does. After the election last year, he sized up the GOP problem of attracting minorities, as he sized up defenses when he quarterbacked the University of Oklahoma football team to championships. Here is what he said:

“The fact is, it is hard to have perspective and it is hard to have diversity, with women or black or red or yellow or brown or white, if you have no relationships. How perplexing this is if we think we can get people to vote for us if we do not know them.”

 Carpet-bombing critics 

Apologists for the current GOP leaders reacted quickly. First, they defended the leaders of the current calamity. Then they carpet-bombed Watts and anyone else who dared challenge the leadership in the wake of November. They threw raisins everywhere. One of the leaders whined that “outsiders do not understand” how hard it is to attend “all the meetings.”

Yes, all those raisin-filled fancy meetings with other raisin-filled fancy and so-very-important people. Sadly, going to fancy places for fancy meetings may be just about all they can do. They cannot seem to grasp the depth and breadth of the GOP problem. So they will do what they do, and we must admit, they are pretty good at exclusion, whether intentional or inadvertent.

Late last year, I was asked by one of the current GOP leaders which “groups or people” I would try to include in the Republican Party. “All of them, everybody,” I answered. His eyes widened and I caught what might have been the beginning of a smirk: “You want all of them?” “Yes,” I said. “We don’t need all of them,” he growled.

Ah, here was a man who wanted to appeal to just enough to win some elections. That strategy is less threatening. It means the party does not have to make as many changes, just enough to be competitive. I went on offense. “If having a broad appeal seems to be too big a job right now,” I said, “I will settle for not repelling so many people.” He narrowed his eyes and shook his head negatively as he moved away.

I had gone too far and asked too much of that man. He has a more orthodox, and narrower, vision of the GOP. It is the “inclusionists” who are outside the mainstream now.

Watts spoke clearly: How can Republicans expect the votes of those they do not know? No party can expect votes from people who feel alienated. This is not 16th century Europe, when a leader could conquer a territory and force the inhabitants to adopt a new religion. When will the leaders of the GOP think about this? When will they conclude all the by-invitation-only meetings and meet some disenchanted voters?

For now, the answer from the Republican leadership comes with all the wistfulness, ambivalence and cynicism of Parker at her most neurotic. Her lifelong answer to everything she did not want to do was a simple one:

“Oh, I thought we did not have to.”

Republicans: You have to.

This dogma will not hunt. Get a new dogma.

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(Full disclosure: Feltman is chair of his local Republican Party in Falls Church, Virginia. A different version of this article was published at Politico prior to the Iowa meeting.)

Posted in Congress, Elections, Ken Feltman at Politico, Political parties, Politics | Tagged , ,

Roe v. Wade: Was Another Concern on the Justice’s Mind?

Posted on January 22, 2013 by
By Ken Feltman
 
Shortly after he had retired from the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Harry Blackmun and his wife, Dorothy, joined another couple and my wife and me for a quiet dinner. He was reflective that evening, especially about his love of baseball. We three men at the table shared many baseball stories that evening, clearly boring the women. But Blackmun also reflected on the death penalty and Roe v. Wade.
 
He said that he had approached writing the opinion in Roe as he did with other opinions. He put aside his personal views and concentrated on the law. He believed that the law should progress one step at a time to avoid a leap too far. Such a leap could create years of tension and divisive confrontation as opponents sought to reverse the decision and proponents tried to shore it up. The shoring up might be with cases that affirmed the original decision and the abrupt shift in the direction of the law. Even better, he believed, would be several decisions that “filled in” the gap between the law before the divisive case and the situation after “the leap.”
 
Despite his preference for the continuity of the law, Blackmun’s opinion took the issue away from the states, out of the jurisdiction of the courts in the 50 states, and federalized the right of privacy. Was Blackmun haunted by the rumors that were prevalent in government and the media in Washington during President Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign? Even then, people talked openly of how Nixon’s paranoia – discussed and written about beginning nearly two decades before Nixon became president – could have motivated Nixon or his closest supporters to plan and eventually attempt to cover up the Watergate burglary.    
 
Nixon appointed Blackmun to the Supreme Court in April 1970. Blackmun was confirmed 94-0 the next month. He was Nixon’s fourth choice. Lewis F. Powell turned down an appointment (he later accepted nomination to the Court). The contentious battles over the failed nominations of Clement Haynsworth and Harold Carswell followed. Both Nixon and the Senate were weary of the bitterness and Blackmun’s nomination was welcomed by the Senate.
 
Roe was initially argued before the Supreme Court in December 1971. The case was reargued on October 11, 1972, a few weeks before Nixon’s reelection on November 7, 1972. The decision was announced on January 22, 1973.
 
Blackmun told us during the dinner that he recognized that the extension of the right of privacy would be analyzed and interpreted in many ways, some intended, some not. Then he said something that echoes in my memory. Slowly, as if reconsidering every word before saying it, he asked us to consider a time when a fearful government, possibly driven to intrusive and even paranoid behavior, might want to violate even the sanctity of the Catholic confessional and the attorney-client privilege.
 
Often, I have recalled Blackmun’s slow and serious words that evening as I wonder whether and how much Watergate influenced Roe v. Wade.
Posted in Constitutional law, Controversial, Ken Feltman | Tagged ,

A question from Politico: Is it appropriate for politicians to use this time, in any capacity, to reexamine gun control?

Posted on December 17, 2012 by

By Ken Feltman

It is appropriate and necessary for politicians and all of us to reexamine gun control. We do not need grandstanding, slogans and political posturing but we do need to take a long, hard look at the culture of violence that surrounds us. How much does Hollywood contribute to a callous attitude toward “blowing away” dozens of people with a single clip of ammo? Do violent digital games lessen sensitivity to mayhem and death? Are there telling signs that someone may be inclined toward mass murder with an automatic weapon?

We must also examine the second amendment and, especially, the word militia, which seems to underpin the arguments of pro-gun advocates. At the time the Bill of Rights was adopted, standing armies in peaceful times were rare to non-existent. Today, we have the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Coast Guard and National Guard. When was the last time anyone was called from his home to fight an invader or put down an insurrection? If a burglar enters a home, does the property owner need an arsenal for defense? By wrapping themselves in the Constitution, have the advocates for guns taken us to the extremes of logic and common sense? 

Everything needs to be on the table. The gun advocates will tell us that guns do not kill people, people kill people. Actually, in frightening numbers, people kill people WITH guns. The problem is the availability of guns making it easier for guns to get into the hands of troubled people. When the gun lobby has a realistic solution for that problem, then we should listen. Meantime, blanket opposition to any restrictions on weapons should be seen as the extreme and unreasonable position that it is – a position that guarantees that there will be another horrible day in a school, a mall or a house of worship, somewhere, all too soon.

(A version of this was also published in Politico)

Posted in Controversial, Guns and gun control, Ken Feltman at Politico, Politics | Tagged ,

Is the Middle the Future? If so, Who’s in the Middle?

Posted on December 10, 2012 by

By Ken Feltman

Republicans have no clear national leader and may not for some time. The problem is numbers and attitudes. The conservative elements of the Republican Party, especially social conservatives, do not have the numbers to claim party-wide leadership. In fact, their numbers are dwindling. Some tea partiers, although certainly not all, do not work well with others and tend to alienate the regulars. For their part, the regulars resent the brash, rigid, energetic, sometimes needlessly secretive newcomers. This is a formula for disaster. 

Meantime, and increasingly left outside the tent, the moderates and remnants of the old Northeast-Midwest based GOP are aging and finally vanishing from the Republican Party. The moderates feel out of place in a party that has so many factions seeking converts, not compromise and governing coalitions. This sort of group funk has occurred in the Republican Party before. It has happened within the Democratic Party, too. Rarely does a party go the way of the Whigs, who could not adjust to the growing abolitionist movement. 

Somewhere, the beginnings of a new party that will draw more heavily from the center may be stirring. Or perhaps a new, more inclusive Republican leader is set to emerge. Whatever comes will challenge the Democrats, who have drawn ever leftward as the Republicans have headed to the right. A successful political future will include more voters from the middle, which is the only way to get to 50 percent plus one. That middle happens to be where many women and immigrants find themselves today.

(A version of this was published in Politico)

 
Posted in Elections, Ken Feltman at Politico, Political parties | Tagged , , , , ,

“You can’t teach an old dogma new tricks.”

Posted on December 7, 2012 by

By Ken Feltman

“You can’t teach an old dogma new tricks.”
 
-Dorothy Parker
 
Years ago, I decided that if a telling comment was not from the Bible or Shakespeare, it must be from Dorothy Parker. Now, 45 years after her death, she has managed to sum up the current state of the Republican Party better than any contemporary talking head. No living pundit is her match. The moment you read her comment, you know she’s right – and in the present case, she even tells us what to do to fix things.
 
Look where the old dogma got us. Why, Parker has a witty, if sad, way to describe November’s Mitt Romney-led slaughter: “This wasn’t just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it.” The Romney campaign’s voter turnout program was called ORCA. The orca had no bite, the pollsters had no clue. This was all raisins.
 
So what to do? First thing we do is not listen to the current leadership of the GOP. Parker has summed up their ability to get anything done. When told that former president Calvin Coolidge had died, Parker remarked, “How could they tell?” Right. This crew of leaders doesn’t seem to know breathing from Bill O’Reilly’s bloviating.
 
Get new leaders? Not so easy. The current leaders like being mired in their chumminess and little intrigues. Parker had a poem for them:
 
“If I didn’t care for fun and such
I’d probably amount to much
But I shall stay the way I am
Because I do not give a damn.”
 
Yep, going to all those meetings and things, with other so-very-important people, that’s what they think is required of the job and just about all they can do. So they do it, and pretty well. Then a man like former Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Okla.) comes along and offers a solution:
 
“But the fact is, it’s hard to have perspective and it’s hard to have diversity, with women or black or red or yellow or brown or white, if you have no relationships. How perplexing this is if we think we can get people to vote for us if we don’t know them.” Watts speaks clearly: How can Republicans expect the votes of those they do not know?
 
Once upon a time, with the wistfulness, ambivalence and cynicism of Parker at her most neurotic, the Republican leadership responds with her words: “Oh, I thought we didn’t have to….”
 
Republicans: You have to.
 
This dogma won’t hunt. Get a new dogma.
 
(a version of this article was published at Politico)
 
 
Posted in Congress, Elections, Ken Feltman at Politico, Political parties, Politics | Tagged , , , , ,