By Gary North
The general rule is this: voters forget in six months. They do not bear political grudges. The general rule got broken with TARP.
A Political Insurrection Has Begun
On Saturday, May 8, an extraordinary event took place. United States Senator Bob Bennett, a 3-term Republican, failed to make the cut for his party's primary. Not only was he not nominated to run, he did not make the cut to get nominated. He was a distant third. Two Tea Party candidates beat him.
Bob Bennett is a legacy Senator. His father served as Senator before him.
This was an insurrection.
Bennett had turned squishy years ago. He had an undeserved reputation as a conservative. He backed the TARP bailout in 2008. Then he backed Obama's health insurance bill. That did it. "No mas!" The folks back home sent him a message: "You're out of here!"
Then, three days later, across the country, it happened again. Congressman Alan Mollohan of West Virginia, was smashed in the Democratic Party's primary, 56% to 44%. He had held that seat for 14 terms – almost 28 years. He had supported Obama's health care bill. He was one of the Stupak Seven. When Stupak folded, Mollohan folded. That ended his political career.
This is a bipartisan insurrection. It indicates that the voters have finally had enough. It may represent a turning point in American politics.
Think about what these two votes mean. In American politics, voters decide between two parties. Politicians' campaign strategies are targeted at the 80% of the voters who are in play. The 10% at each end of the political spectrum are either true believers or staunch enemies. They are ignored. They get platitudes from the candidates, but that's all. A politician who campaigns on a straight ideological platform is extremely rare. Ron Paul is such a politician, but how representative is he of politics in general?
As soon as a person is elected to Congress, his party supports him thereafter, no matter what. Local politics is seen as "our man in Washington vs. their would-be interloper." The faithful party member now overlooks every deviant vote by the incumbent. The incumbent is always seen as better than the other party's candidate, no matter who that candidate is.
At the level of the Presidency, there are enough independents and enough marginal voters to enable a popular candidate to win votes from members of the other party. Think of Jimmy Cater in 1980. Reagan overwhelmed him. Carter lost votes from his own party.
The nation is really divided. We have never seen before what happened under Clinton and Bush II: a pair of two-term Presidents from rival parties. There is now ebb and flow at the national level. No party has a lock on the Presidency.
This ebb and flow has not existed locally within a party. Once elected, a Congressman or a Senator who decides to run again is going to get the nomination of his party at the next election. The faithful conclude, "Our man, right or wrong." Bob Bennett and Alan Mollohan discovered that this tradition has ended.
It ended without warning. Bennett did not figure out what was about to happen to him until the last minute. To save his candidacy, he invited Mitt Romney to introduce him at the convention. How out of touch can a politician be? Mitt Romney represents the Eastern Republican Establishment. He was governor of Massachusetts. He passed a health care law similar to Obama's. That Bennett thought Romney could help him with the Republicans back home indicates how completely out of touch he had become.
Yes, Romney is a Mormon. Yes, Utah is Mormon. In the good old days, the folks back home would have thought, "It's us vs. them." But with his voting record, Bennett had moved into the camp of "them." He did not perceive this until it was too late.
In a CNN interview with a man identified as the founder of the Tea Party movement in Utah, the interviewer with the flowing hair tried to identify Bennett as a conservative. She reeled off names of supporting right-wing Beltway groups. The man being interviewed shrugged this off. "It isn't a matter of conservatism," he said. "It's a matter of responsibility." Bennett should not have voted to bail out failing companies, he said. But, she hastened to ask, "should a man's career end because of one vote?" His answer was perfect: "His career WILL end with that vote." And it did. CNN then switched to Bennett, who defended that vote. He is gone. The video is worth watching.
The incumbents are facing an insurrection. A fundamental assumption of all Congressional politics is being called into question: guaranteed re-nomination of incumbents. This means that the folks back home are going to nominate newcomers who are dependent on swing voters in a way unseen before in American politics. There will be no more of "our man, right or wrong."
This means that voters back home are so angry that they would prefer to lose the November election with a candidate who reflects their views rather than win with an incumbent who doesn't. It means that the politics of the Capitol Hill club is no longer secure. It means that the Old Boy Network of incumbents on the Hill can no longer secure automatic re-nomination.
If this continues, the nation's political system will change. Incumbents will have to pay attention to the opinions of the voters in their parties in their districts. This places power in the hands of dedicated minorities back home who are willing to send a message to their men in Washington: "You will remain our man for only as long as you vote our way on the issues that matter to us." There will be no more free rides at the nomination level.
Read the whole thing here: A Political Insurrection Has Begun
