Let’s take a quick look around the country at the primary races, and the choices made by the GOP. This is no longer a party that recognizes or makes room for the values of New England moderates.

I understand that proud traditions fade slowly, but I also think there comes a point where folks ought to recognize the writing on the wall. Consider these notes from campaigns now underway:

Kentucky:

Republican primary voters in Kentucky ignored the GOP establishment and overwhelmingly selected Rand Paul to run for the US Senate. He promptly drew enormous scrutiny and criticism for… saying what he really believes. He is certain that the federal government should stand by and allow businesses to deny black people a seat at a restaurant table or a night in a hotel. Sure, he backpedaled his response and endorsed the Civil Rights Act (I’m sure his Profile in Courage award will be forthcoming).

But the fact is: he espoused a view of government that probably doesn’t comport with that of the New England branch of the Republican party. In fact, it was the New England Republicans (and others outside the South) of 1964 who gave the Civil Rights Act the margins needed to overcome near-uniform resistance from Southern Democrats — the same folks who are now overwhelmingly Republican. But the Civil Rights Act controversy wasn’t the strangest thing Rand Paul had to say in the weeks following his primary victory. He is iffy on the 14th Amendment. That is truly amazing. Children born in the US to immigrant parents, regardless of whether they are here legally or not, are US citizens. This is nothing novel. The Supreme Court settled that question, oh, 100 years ago. Yet Rand Paul – and the state senator from Arizona who wrote the controversial, recently-enacted immigration legislation – think there’s something wrong with a fundamental element of our Constitution that has long defined who an American is.

So in Kentucky, you have a GOP electorate endorsing a candidate for US Senate, who is skeptical of parts of the Civil Rights Act and the 14th Amendment. If your party is leaving you…

Maine:

At state conventions, delegates endorse candidates. But they also draft and endorse a state party platform. Up in Maine, the Republican delegates adopted a platform that is shocking. It’s only four pages. I urge you to go read it. If you think the Tea Party types are some isolated fringe group that has nothing to do with the traditions of New England Republicans, consider that in a New England state, the Republican party now espouses these views:

• Repeal and prohibit any participation in efforts to create a one world government.
• Reject the UN Treaty on Rights of the Child.
• Investigate collusion between government and industry in the global warming myth
• Pass and implement Fed bill #1207 (Introduced by Ron Paul), to Audit the Federal Reserve, as the first step in Ending the Fed
• Return to the principles of Austrian Economics

Bonus points if you know what Austrian Economics is all about (here’s a hint: Ron Paul has written six books on the subject). There’s more: Tenther stuff, specific targeting of ACORN, and “Reject[ing] any effort to give foreign citizens the right to vote” (What? Huh? Did I miss something in the news lately?). And I love the bit where they specify that “Congress can no longer vote themselves a pay raise.” That is specifically addressed in the 27th Amendment. Sure, it took 202 years to ratify, but it’s there. For all the professed reverence for the Constitution, they sure are quick to toss aside the parts that conflict with policy they want to impose while taking the country back (how far back always remains unclear).

This is in New England. Do you think Olympia Snowe is grateful that her term isn’t up in 2010? If your party is leaving you…

Nevada:

Chickens. A serious Republican Senate candidate wants you to pay for your health care with chickens. OK, I admit I’m over-simplifying. But it’s funny stuff. The candidate for US Senate who was most likely to end up challenging Harry Reid in November made a pretty colossal error and suggested that barter was a way to help keep health care costs down. She went on to say that decades ago, a farmer might offer to pay a doctor with a chicken, and that’s something we should look at now. Now, instead of saying “Look, I was merely saying people do all sorts of things to pay for the sky-high health care costs that we need to address, but I was not suggesting that actual barter is a real solution to this problem,” she dug in deeper. Her lead in the GOP field evaporated, opening the door to the Tea Party-endorsed Sharron Angle.

Again, in a race for the US Senate, the party seems like it’s going to nominate the candidate with the views that have nothing to do with reasonable, centrist, moderate governance. According to Angle, Social Security is “a broken system without much to recommend it.” She favors phasing it out. Good luck with that. She also wants to repeal the 16th Amendment (boy these Constitution-lovers sure do hate those pesky Amendments!). That’s the income tax. And while a state senator in Nevada, “she wanted female inmates to enter a drug rehabilitation program devised by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.”

So in Nevada, you have the chicken-barter slip-up leading to the political ascendancy of a candidate who wants to literally eliminate the tax code and social security. That is not someone serious about governing in the 21st century. If your party is leaving you…

Oregon:

This one is a little off the beaten path, but, the race for the House seat in Oregon’s Fourth Congressional district is instructive. One of my basic arguments is: you can’t identify a serious Democratic contender for a House seat that is this far outside the mainstream. Yet, you can find lots of candidates like Oregon’s Arthur Robinson on the GOP side. Mr. Robinson is nominated to challenge Democratic incumbent Peter DeFazio. Mr. Robinson will lose. DeFazio had no challenger in 2008, and has won with 20- or 30-point margins in previous contests. So perhaps the local GOP is just giving the nod to the only guy who wanted to take on the task. But, do you think a modern political party should put forth a nominee who says:

Home schooling is no more than a tool that can be used to keep a child out of the World.

If a young person is kept out of the World, the Lord will raise him (or her). Little else is necessary. The links to the Lord are already built into the child. He will follow those links and will directly help the child. All children receive this help. Parents really need do very little in addition.

He’s also an avid climate-change denier, and doesn’t think schools (or homeschoolers) should use any books published after 1950.

Can you find me ANY nominated Democratic candidate in any of the 435 districts in the US whose views on ANY aspect or function of the government are similarly extreme? I doubt it. Please try. If your party is leaving you…

Alabama:

This ad says everything you need to know about the heart of the modern Republican party. Now, this guy did lose in his primary, so his own party’s voters rejected this pitch. Thank heaven. But I think the ad demonstrates where the the base of the Republican party has shifted to in the last few decades. Sorry, folks. The center of the GOP is in the culturally distinct South.

Again, show me the ad from a statewide Democratic campaign (or federal campaign) ANYWHERE in the nation that is so out-of-step with the political norms and values of Connecticut voters. You just don’t see this sort of thing in Democratic campaigns, because Democrats are now the centrist, moderate party in this country. We have a left-wing and a conservative wing (and folks all along the spectrum in between). But the GOP is now reduced to a right-wing and a ultra-right-wing. If your party is leaving you…

And, of course, Connecticut:

The Republicans in Connecticut threw moderate Rob Simmons under the bus. A primary between him and Linda McMahon would have been beneficial, I think. But the Republican establishment in this state took a look at a moderate with a career in public service, including experience in the Congress and a woman with a career in (you can’t make this stuff up) TV wrestling whose only work experiences are promoting violence, sexism, and stereotypes to young people, and chose the latter. If you haven’t seen the WWE videos of simulated rape and necrophilia, or the depiction of a mentally disabled “character,” you haven’t yet seen the work of Linda McMahon.

There is no room in Connecticut’s Republican party for moderates, it seems. Even here in New Canaan – at the Memorial Day parade (which is supposed to be respected as a non-partisan event recognizing the solemn nature of the observance) – at least one member of the RTC was out there circulating petitions for Rob Merkle in the race for Congress. Apparently, Dan Debicella isn’t ultra-right-wing enough for some on the RTC.

To the other, moderate New Canaan Republicans, I continue to make the case: if your party is leaving you, it’s time to leave your party.

The Connecticut Food Bank announced its 2009 food distribution at 18.7 Million Pounds, the highest sum recorded in the food bank’s 28-year history. The amount of food distributed was up by over 15% from 2008.

Not the Kind of Record You Want to Set

Connecticut Food Bank is the largest centralized source of donated emergency food in Connecticut – and serves 650 food-assistance programs in Fairfield and 5 other counties. Food-assistance programs include food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, and child and adult day programs.

Remarking on 2009’s record-setting pace of food distribution, Nancy L. Carrington, Chief Executive Officer of Connecticut Food Bank, said “This is a bittersweet milestone for us. We are thankful for having the ability to provide more food to feed more people, and we are fortunate to have tens of thousands of partners in the community willing to assist in making that happen. But we wish we didn’t have to.”

Volunteer to Help

There are people in need in our communities. If you are interested in volunteering to help, contact Gladys Alcedo at (203) 469-5000, ext. 309, or via e-mail

Citizens United, a non-profit corporation – essentially a PAC – released an unflattering documentary film about Hilary Clinton during the 2008 presidential primary season. It saw as its corporate purpose making this film available to cable TV subscribers at no charge to viewers.

Citizens was frustrated in that respect, however, by a provision of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 which prohibited any corporation or union from making any electioneering communication (which this film clearly was), within thirty days of a primary or sixty days of a general election. Reversing more than a century of statutory and case law finding that a corporation did not have an absolute right of free speech in the political arena, the Court found these provisions of the BCRA unconstitutional in that they limited the First Amendment rights of corporations. In so doing, the Court chose to overrule two of its decisions which were virtually directly on point.

Seldom has a Supreme Court decision generated such a storm of protest. Seldom have there been such legitimate grounds. The Court ignored precedent, it ignored the time-honored tradition of deciding cases only on the narrowest of grounds. It ignored the fact that the case was moot, since Citizens United would not be able to show the film during the 2008 year after the case was decided. The Court requested briefs on the precise issue of whether its precedents should be overturned, and seemed almost gleeful in determining that the case could not be decided other than on constitutional grounds. It could have chosen to limit its holding to non-profit corporations such as Citizens United – it did not. Without a hint of an apology and with no notion that the effect of its decisions might be undesirable, it extended its holding to overturn all restrictions on the use of corporate funds in election campaigns.

The First Amendment’s guarantee of Freedom of Speech is not absolute. One cannot shout “Fire” in a crowded theater. One cannot slander one’s fellow citizen with impunity. One cannot advertise the goods or property one wishes to sell or lease with casual regard for the truth. In these respects the guarantee gives way to other competing considerations militating in favor of speech limitations. Political speech is, or perhaps was, such an area. Our system of government allows five individuals the power to make unreviewable decisions to determine the relative weight these other concerns may carry. This carries great risk – we have long been aware of it.

The Justices joining in the majority decision consisted of the five members nominated by Republican Presidents (Kennedy, Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito). Citizens was represented by the former Solicitor General of the United States in W’s administration (Theodore Olsen). Champions of free speech have lived on both sides of the aisle. But maybe there is a Republican bias towards permitting corporate involvement in political discourse. Republican underhanded campaign tactics have generally been more successful in recent years – Willie Horton, Swift Boats, etc. Scary.

– Attorney Paul Burnham, DTC member ]]> http://www.wiltondems.org/2010/01/wilton-politics-weekly-dtc-weighs-in-on-first-amendment-concerns/feed/ 0 http://www.wiltondems.org/2010/01/the-changing-political-landscape/ http://www.wiltondems.org/2010/01/the-changing-political-landscape/#comments Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:57:30 +0000 admin http://www.wiltondems.org/2010/01/the-changing-political-landscape/ Democrats today are not intimidated or threatened by the changes in the political landscape. We will continue to pursue our Democratic goals and ideals and work to see them implemented.]]>

John Kalamarides – Chair, WDTC