What does Mitch Daniels have against women's health?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

TPM:

Republican Governor Mitch Daniels released a statement Friday afternoon saying he will sign legislation stripping federal funds from Planned Parenthood in Indiana, the first state to make such a move. 

This is somewhat odd, it seems to me, given that Daniels tends to focus on economic issues and avoid divisive social ones... unless, of course, he's gearing up for a 2012 presidential run and this is a move aimed at stirring up support with the extremist grassroots base of the GOP.

And, indeed, Daniels is specifically targeting Planned Parentood for providing abortion services:

Any organization affected by this provision can resume receiving taxpayer dollars immediately by ceasing or separating its operations that perform abortions.

But Planned Parenthood is about far more than abortion. It's about women's health, and abortion is actually a small part of what it does. More than that, it's about providing health services to women who can't otherwise afford them:

"We do around 500 pap tests a week," Indiana Planned Parenthood President Betty Cockrum told TPM in an interview earlier on Friday. "We will be making phone calls to Medicaid patients all over the state and telling them, either you have to pay for that pap test out of pocket, or you need to find someone else who can take you as a Medicaid patient. We can't do it anymore."

There are 28 Planned Parenthood centers in the state. Almost 60 percent of patients seen last year were living under the poverty line.

Daniels may be doing this to boost his own popularity at home, but he's already in his second term and he can't run for a third consecutive one. So is he doing it simply out of principle? Maybe, but it does seem much likelier that he's doing it with an eye on the White House. Steve Benen:

That only 3% of Planned Parenthood's operations deal with abortions, and that public funding of abortions is already legally prohibited, apparently didn't matter.

What's especially striking about this is how cruel and unnecessary it is. Daniels has been governor of Indiana for more than six years, and he's never had a problem with Planned Parenthood funding. He was Bush's budget director for more than two years, and he never had a problem with Planned Parenthood funding.

But now that he's thinking about running for president, and has hysterical right-wing activists to impress, now Mitch Daniels has suddenly discovered Planned Parenthood funding -- which has enjoyed bipartisan support for decades -- is no longer acceptable to him. 

Indeed, so much for Daniels as a "serious" Republican.

Lugar faces the Tea Party music

By Michael J.W. Stickings

A couple of weeks ago, R.K. Barry wrote an Elephant Dung post on how the Indiana Tea Party is going after long-time and highly-respected Republican Sen. Richard Lugar, planning a 2012 challenge that could ultimately bring down one of the few remaining sensible Republicans on Capitol Hill. Well, it ain't lookin' good for Lugar:

Indiana state Treasurer Richard Mourdock will launch his primary challenge to Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) on Tuesday with the support of a majority of both the state's 92 Republican county chairmen and its state party executive committee, he told the Fix in a recent interview.

"I feel bad that he's going to be humiliated by this list," Mourdock said.

Mourdock added that he believes Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) and Rep. Mike Pence (R), the party's two leading figures in the Hoosier State, are going to stay neutral in the primary -- though Daniels, who was Lugar's campaign manager three different times, has already committed to voting for the senator.

That such a large contingent of the party establishment should come out against or withhold support from an incumbent senator is highly unusual and reflects the difficult path ahead for Lugar in advance of the May 8, 2012, primary fight. It also suggests there is a clear path to victory for Mourdock.

From what I can tell, Mourdock isn't just another Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell, or John Raese. While he's to the right of Lugar, he would appear to be a competent figure who could well win a general election in what is already a red-leaning state. And he's not a full-on Teabagger:

Mourdock is clear on one thing: he is not running as a tea party candidate. While he welcomes the support of tea party groups and says he expects them to coalesce around his campaign, he recognizes the limitations of being defined as a tea party candidate.

"Mr. Lugar will try to paint me that way, because he's speaking very demeaningly about the tea party right now," Mourdock said. "I think he's doing it that way to set it up and say, 'Mourdock is some wild-eyed extremist.'"

Well, an extremist he is, if well within the mainstream of today's GOP, but Lugar will likely have a hard time making his case stick, what with so much of the state party likely to line up behind Mourdock. (Although an endorsement from Daniels would help.)

What's interesting, though, as we continue to track the GOP's civil war, is that Lugar is hardly a moderate. As R.K. put it:

It seems that Lugar's sin is that he voted to confirm a couple of liberal Supreme Court justices and voted for the START treaty to reduce the stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world. It's not like he voted for health-care reform or the economic stimulus package, offenses that would likely have gotten him beheaded before they threw him out of office. No, just a couple of votes on the Supremes and a missile treaty seems to be enough to incur the wrath of the radical right.

Never mind that based on so many other indicators he's a fairly conservative fellow, which is born out by the fact that he's always been pro-life and pro-business, and an advocate for lower taxes and smaller government.

He's a solid conservative, in other words, and a loyal Republican -- not that either is good enough these days, not with the Tea Party demanding absolutism on a broad core of policy positions. And even compromising on a couple of issues (which pretty much everyone in Congress has to do over the course of a long career), even showing a breadth of understanding beyond narrow ideological parochialism (which Lugar, a foreign policy expert, certainly has done), can bring about one's downfall at the hands of the Republican Bolsheviks.

R.K. notes that Lugar is "just too damn strong and viewed as unbeatable by the political establishment," and hence that a Tea Party challenge would be "a colossal waste of time," but this isn't just about the Tea Party anymore. Rather, it's about a broader conservative challenge to Lugar, including from within the state party establishment. It's hard to imagine Lugar losing, but it's easier now than ever before, what with the Tea Party and the Republican establishment making nice all across the country, endangering not just Lugar but even the likes of Orrin Hatch in Utah, hardly anything other than a hardcore conservative.

This says a lot about the state of the Republican Party today as it looks ahead to 2012, a party of increasing extremism that, with the Tea Party pushing its buttons, is trying -- often successfully -- to purge its ranks of "sinners," of those who have deviated from the far-right line.

And I'm all for it, because it just makes Republicans even more unelectable. They won the House last year because of a bad economy and low voter turnout (and successful propaganda), but things will be different next year, with Obama rebounding, the economy (hopefully) improving, and enthusiasm among Democrats returning (if not quite to '08 levels). Moving further and further to the right while dismissing even the likes of Richard Lugar would just make their chances even worse.

(photo)

Jeb Bush talks up Mitch Daniels for 2012

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The supposedly smarter Bush brother:

Jeb Bush likes Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels' 2012 presidential prospects. The former Florida governor told a private gathering of Jacksonville business leaders that Daniels is the only potential candidate he's heard who demonstrates a willingness to face up to harsh realities.

"Mitch is the only one who sees the stark perils and will offer real detailed proposals," he said, speaking at a reception held before he took the stage in front of a crowd of real estate professionals.

Well, look, Daniels is certainly one of the saner Republicans these days -- which admittedly isn't really saying much -- and his one and a half terms as Indiana governor have proven him to be a relatively responsible fiscal conservative. Not that I go for such policies, but he's preferable to most others in the GOP.

But Jeb's got the year wrong.

In terms of the Republican nomination, this isn't 2008, when a moderate could win as the sitting vice president to continue the Reagan presidency (Jeb's dad), or 1996, when a long-time leading establishment figure could win to face a popular president at a time of economic health (Dole), or 2000, when a safe conservative could win after eight years of Clinton and things generally looking good both domestically and internationally (Jeb's brother), or 2008, when another long-time establishment figure, if also something of a former maverick, could win with the party bitterly divided after eight years of Bush II, defeating a fairly weak primary field (McCain).

This is, or will be, 2012, and, as we saw last year, and as we continue to see now, the Republican Party has changed. It has moved, and is moving, further and further to the right and the Tea Party has become a major player across the country, booting out even credible hardcore conservatives who haven't met their far-right agenda or conspiratorial predilections. The Tea Party has its members on Capitol Hill now, but it's bigger in the base -- and you have to win the base to win the nomination. And it's not just the Tea Party. While there is significant overlap, the Republican Party is also the party of the Birthers. And of course it's not just fiscally but socially conservative in the extreme.

And Daniels just doesn't cut it. He's raised taxes, after, even going so far as to propose a tiny tax increase on the wealthy (a one percent increase for one year) that was rejected by his own party. And while he's socially conservative, he's not an activist social conservative. As Nate Silver noted recently, Daniels "has called for a "truce"... on social issues, and expressed a willingness to consider tax increases to rectify a budget deficit." I see how Jeb might like all that, but Republican primary voters certainly won't, should he even decide to run.

2012 just won't be his year, not as a relatively sane "moderate" in a party that is speeding away from him to the distant right.

(photo -- Daniels is the short one in the middle.)

Elephant Dung #14: Tea Party goes after Republican Senate icon Richard Lugar

Tracking the GOP Civil War

By R.K. Barry

(For an explanation of this ongoing series, see here. For previous entries, see here.)

Long-time Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana is up for re-election in 2012 and, it seems, he just isn't conservative enough for the local Tea Party contingent. But who is? Really. I wouldn't be the first to claim that the sainted Ronald Reagan would be hard-pressed to pass muster with this gang, given his penchant for tax increases and signing missile treaties with those darn Ruskies. Imagine anyone calling Ronald Reagan a RINO (Republican in Name Only).

It seems that Lugar's sin is that he voted to confirm a couple of liberal Supreme Court justices and voted for the START treaty to reduce the stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world. It's not like he voted for health-care reform or the economic stimulus package, offenses that would likely have gotten him beheaded before they threw him out of office. No, just a couple of votes on the Supremes and a missile treaty seems to be enough to incur the wrath of the radical right.

Never mind that based on so many other indicators he's a fairly conservative fellow, which is born out by the fact that he's always been pro-life and pro-business, and an advocate for lower taxes and smaller government.

As David Weigel points out at Slate, the challenge probably won't mean very much. He writes:

Indiana's going to be complicated. If Mike Pence runs for governor, as everyone expects him to, does he throw his senior senator under the bus? Doubtful. If the GOP race for president drags on a bit, it will drag on to Indiana, driving higher turnout -- and Tea Party coups have not been won with high turnout, but with voter enthusiasm in sleepy late primaries. 

Add to that the fact that Lugar is just too damn strong and viewed as unbeatable by the political establishment and you have a colossal waste of time in the making. But that won't stop them.

 As one Tea Party activist remarked:

[We're saying to Lugar] thank you for what you've done. We respect you greatly as a person and for what you've done in the past. But to go forward, we feel it's going to need to be a different candidate.

Yeah, I'll bet that made him crap his pants.

You have to admit that these Tea Partiers are not shy. In any case, there seem to be a couple of candidates available more to their liking, though it appears doubtful that either will have much traction.

One of the things that comes through consistently with Tea Partiers is their utter lack of practical political sense. They are true believers. Fail their purity test, which is probably inevitable for any politician who has been in D.C. for more than a weekend, and expect to hear about it -- in a big way.

That may make them all feel good and noble but it won't do much for their electoral chances. Someone really should explain that to them, but I'm not going to be the one to do it. It'll be more fun if they figure it out for themselves. 

Makes you wonder what other Republican heavyweights they're going to go after next.

********** 

Update (by MJWS): Lugar, for his part, is being gracious, though you can tell he's rather annoyed. Take this brilliant comeback, for example:

"I've been working systematically for 20 years going to Russia trying to help direct a situation in which we're taking warheads off of missiles every day, destroying missiles that were aimed at us; destroying submarines that carried misslies up and down our coast," said Lugar. "I've got to say 'Get real'. I hear Tea Party or other people talking about they were against START. I said 'Well, now, hang on here.'"

Lugar continued, "If you want to get into START, let's talk about it, but realistically as Americans, not as some Republican renegade. [I'm] trying to take warheads of Russia [out of circulation] so they won't hit Indiana."

Lugar's an admirable guy, I say from across the partisan divide, but there's no way the Tea Party is about to "get real."

Elephant Dung #11: The Tea Party prepares for 2012 takeover of GOP

Tracking the GOP Civil War

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(For an explanation of this ongoing series, see here. For previous entries, see here.)

To an extent, the Republican Party and the Tea Party are the same thing.

The latter isn't politically independent, even if a small minority of its members are, it's solidly Republican. And the Tea Party has become such a major part of the Republican Party that it's hard to tell the two apart.

To be sure, there are a number of Republicans, mostly in what has been the party "establishment," who aren't Teabaggers, but that number, and their power, appears to be in decline.

To put it another way, the Republican Party and the Tea Party (which, again, is mostly Republican anyway) have embraced each other. Now, another word for "embrace," in this context, is "co-opt," as each sees the other as its vehicle for electoral success. The Tea Party needs the Republican Party, and vice versa.

But, hugging notwithstanding, the relationship is not always amicable, not least with the Tea Party trying not just to co-opt the Republican Party but to take it over and control it. The Tea Party doesn't just want to be one of the Republican Party's main components but its dominant force. It doesn't want the Republican Party to be an umbrella party (like the Democratic Party) with multiple perspectives and policy positions within it, but a rigid ideological party of Tea Party dogma.

It wants the Republican Party, that is, to be the party of Rand Paul, Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell, and the rest of the Teabaggers who ran last year to varying success. And, to that end, and drunk on delusion, it's gearing up for 2012:

Leaders of more than 70 Tea Party groups in Indiana gathered last weekend to sign a proclamation saying they would all support one candidate — as yet undetermined — in a primary challenge to Senator Richard G. Lugar, the Republican who has represented the state since 1977.

They are organizing early, they say, to prevent what happened last year, when several Tea Party candidates split the vote in Republican Senate primaries, allowing the most establishment of the candidates to win with less than 40 percent.

The meeting in Sharpsville was hardly the exception. Just three months after the midterm elections, Tea Party organizers are preparing to challenge some of the longest-serving Republican incumbents in 2012.

In Maine, there is already one candidate running on a Tea Party platform against Senator Olympia J. Snowe. Supporters there are seeking others to run, declaring that they, too, will back the person they view as the strongest candidate to avoid splitting their vote. In Utah, the same people who ousted Senator Robert F. Bennett at the state’s Republican convention last spring are now looking at a challenge to Senator Orrin G. Hatch.

The early moves suggest that the pattern of the last elections, in which primaries were more fiercely contested than the general election in several states, may be repeated.

They also show how much the Tea Party has changed the definition of who qualifies as a conservative. While Ms. Snowe is widely considered a moderate Republican, Mr. Hatch is not. Mr. Lugar, similarly, defines himself as a conservative.

Ah, but that's not good enough anymore.

You can't just be a "conservative," you have to be a Tea Party conservative, a right-wing extremist like Rand, Angle, and O'Donnell, predominantly on economic issues (where the insane views of Ayn Rand are standard fare) but also on social ones (the Tea Party may be known best for its views on "limited" government, but it's extremely conservative, if not generally theocratic, on social issues as well, even allowing for hyper-libertarian exceptions like Rand).

And if even an Orrin Hatch isn't good enough, well, you know just how far to the right the Tea Party is -- and would like the Republican Party to be.

So are we headed for an ugly, internally divisive Republican primary season, with Teabaggers challenging any and all Republicans who don't meet their far-right standards, including established conservatives like Hatch?

Hopefully. Let's see what these Teabaggers are made off -- and let's watch the Republican Party reap what it has sown. 

Bring it on.