The first rule of medicine is the first rule of politics and it’s simple – “Do No Harm.”  As this bad reality TV show of a GOP primary season continues and Gingrich gains some momentum, evangelicals and other conservative groups desperately searching for the anti-Romney should think about the bigger picture.  Similarly, Tea Party groups should look to their backyards for more exciting candidates and contests.  Both groups need to ask themselves in selecting a candidate who will first and foremost “do no harm” to the down-ballot races.

We have to face the political reality that the search for a real, bold conservative leader as the “Romney alternative” is at this point a fruitless enterprise.  Conservative Republican voters can project anything they want onto Gingrich, but he is really a conservative of convenience and it can be argued that his actual record is more progressive than conservative.

Ignore the rhetoric. Newt’s a political “swinger” who will pretty much say anything to get people into his bed.

This year seems to be one of unfortunate choices.  The more genuinely conservative candidates either chose not to run, or lacked organization, funding and the preparation to mount legitimate campaigns, or simply botched their campaigns, leaving voters with a choice between “conservatives of convenience” Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.  Santorum’s dismal fiscal record makes him barely worthy of mention.

Put simply, our choices have boiled down to a guy who lost reelection by almost 20 points after spearheading the infamous pay-for-play K-Street Project; a man who helped give birth to the Contract With America, who then became one of the most reviled men in American politics; and a former Massachusetts Governor who ran to the left of Ted Kennedy in 1994 but has opportunely found conservativism on the campaign trail.

Conservatives know about Romney’s flip flops, but choose to ignore Gingrich’s record. His support for Medicare Part D, TARP, individual mandates, and climate regulations to say nothing about a personal background that rivals Bill Clinton’s moral challenges, make the right’s flirtation with Gingrich hypocritical and irresponsible.

There’s an old saying, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.”  It’s true – though I’m not even sure at times that Newt’s dog likes Newt.  But more troubling is that his high negatives with the electorate generally can have a damaging effect on key Senate and House races should he be the nominee. While no fan of Romney’s by a long stretch, I find it hard to argue that Romney would be damaging to the Republican cause this fall among non-Republican voters, and if elected, wouldn’t move the country in a rightward direction on fiscal and economic issues.

Conservative primary voters should be mindful that who we nominate will be the top of the entire Republican ticket.  They won’t run in a vacuum.  The impact of that person and their campaign goes far beyond the presidential race to the down-ballot races for US Senate, Congress, Governor and state legislature.

This still is a critical year for conservativism in America and there is still a great deal of work to be done.  In the general election, our choice is simple – either more Obama or someone else.  True, a lot of folks among the GOP base just can’t get excited about Newt or Romney as the nominee, but their voice and work are still desperately needed.  Every member of the House of Representatives is up next year and literally thousands of state and local officials are as well.  There is also an enormous opportunity to end the impotent, liberal control of the US Senate and some Republicans who should be held to account for irresponsible votes.

Tea Party members need to start looking beyond the presidential race to their own backyard to get excited.  There is real potential for a reverse trend here with the Tea Party boosting the ticket from the bottom up rather than the usual top down. As in 2010, the Tea Party has the ability to drive the process from the local level while liberals continue to look to a more top-down approach fueled by the Obama machine.

Remember, Obama, even if he wins re-election (and that’s a big if) would be hamstrung if Republicans control the House and the Senate.  The liberal agenda will be thwarted even more by controlling statehouses and local governments coast-to-coast.  After all, those levels of government impact our daily lives just as much, if not more, than what happens in Washington.

We can’t afford to allow the presidential campaign to be a barrier to broader success.  At the end of the day, whoever the GOP nominee is cannot be used as an excuse for not working this year to get good people elected at all levels of government.  We are fighting against an enemy whose aim is to not just defeat us, but crush us so that government can overpower the free market and strangle the freedom we enjoy.

I’m telling conservatives and Tea Partiers: don’t feel like you have to endorse anyone in the Presidential, especially if you want to avoid that 6 am walk of shame a few months from now.  Just find a candidate in your own backyard that you know you can trust and believe in and get to work on the ground.

From the Diaries…

Newt Gingrich is still leading Mitt Romney and Ron Paul in Iowa, and nationally among Tea Party voters.  But like so many polls, the numbers aren’t what they seem.  In fact, while it might look at first glance that the conservative grassroots are flocking to Gingrich, there are still too many Tea Partiers on the sidelines for comfort.  In order to beat Obama next fall and avoid the kind of fractious performance delivered by conservatives in 2008, both Romney and Gingrich have a lot of work to do to energize the Tea Party movement (if that’s even possible).

What America needs is what the economic conservatives in the Tea Party movement want – reliable and bold fiscally-conservative leadership in Washington.  On that front, both Romney and Gingrich are treated with a great deal of skepticism by large numbers of tea party members across the country.

True, some of them have stated that one or the other is acceptable.  True, Cain’s supporters among the Tea Party have gone almost exclusively to Gingrich.  However, some of that support overlaps with socially conservative voters that do not represent the driving force behind the larger movement.  Accounting for that, what we’re left with at this point is a movement waiting to be moved.

Gingrich, who advocates the individual mandate, promoted Medicare Part D and TARP,  and climate regulations, has become the anti-Romney by default as tea partiers, who are searching desperately for an alternative to the safe, slick father of RomneyCare.   Romney’s poll numbers among tea party members, like his numbers generally, stay level as he struggles to connect both philosophically and emotionally with the grassroots.

Gingrich has clearly benefitted from the misfortune of others: as everyone else either imploded or kept stumbling, people kept cycling through the candidates, looking for an anti-Romney. The last one standing at the moment who is not Romney seems to be Newt, the lucky winner of the “Anyone but Romney” lottery.

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On September 17th, Constitution Day, American Majority will be conducting the first ever Training Bomb. In 14 cities across the country (with more coming online in the next week), from New York City, to Dallas, to Fayetteville, NC (in conjunction with Heritage Action for America), to Hartland, VT (with RedState’s Aaron Gardner) to Nashville, TN, we will be training on how to win politically: politics is policy, and if we want to see the right policy implemented, we’re going to have to first win the political battle.

The Training Bomb is not a rally and it’s not a summit; the time for rallying, protesting and venting is past. We as a movement can be hamsters on a wheel, giving an appearance of activity without actually going anywhere. Or we can be architects, with purposeful action as we systematically build a effective grassroots movement from the ground up. American Majority’s Training Bomb is a massive effort to equip concerned citizens with the tools necessary to bring about change, from how to run for office, to how to be effectively engaged as an activist online, to even how to work precincts and build muscular grassroots. We know we need to reduce the impact of government on our lives to make America stronger, and there’s no better day than Constitution Day to bring thousands of Americans together to learn how they can ensure we continue to live in a free society.

American Majority’s Training Bomb on September 17^th will not only be the biggest one-day training of conservative activists ever, but American Majority is going to be introducing new lectures, new Effectivism manual, and new projects. Help us make the day a success by signing up and spreading the word. Together we can, and will, make the right change happen in this country.

On September 17th, 2011, we will celebrate the 224th anniversary of the signing of our Constitution. It is one of the greatest political documents in history, and has provided us with a roadmap to become the most prosperous and free nation the world has ever seen.

But in 2011, the principles of limited government and individual freedom are in question, and we are at a crossroads: do we go down a path of statism, and abandon the founding vision for this country? Or do we renew those ideals again, and rise to even greater heights of freedom and prosperity? Understanding there is a problem is not enough. Thinking about ideas to solve the problems is not enough. Protesting is not enough.

For us to turn this country around, and have leadership that believes and promotes the right ideas of limited government, free enterprise and fiscal responsibility, the citizens must be equipped with the tools to bring about real change, and then spurred into action. The time to sit and think, or vent, has passed. The time for real action has come.

To that end, American Majority, one of the premier political training institutions in this country, is proud to announce that on September 17th, Constitution Day, it will be conducing the first ever Training Bomb. Tea party members and liberty-minded activists will come together in more than a dozen cities for the largest single-day grassroots training initiative in American history.  For the first time simultaneous sessions across America will be held to educate and mobilize fiscally conservative activists and future leaders.

This is not a rally and it’s not a summit. American Majority’s Training Bomb is a massive effort to equip concerned citizens with the tools necessary to bring about change, from how to run for office, to how to be effectively engaged as an activist online, to even how to works precincts and build muscular grassroots. We know we need to reduce the impact of government on our lives to make America stronger, and there’s no better day than Constitution Day to bring thousands of Americans together to learn how they can ensure we continue to live in a free society.

Both an activist and candidate curriculum will be offered at each location to help the conservative cause organize for victory next year.  Cities where Training Bomb sessions will be held include New York, Chicago, Tulsa, Nashville, Madison, Ft. Meyers, and Dallas. Additional cities will be announced in the coming days. To organize this nation-wide effort, American Majority is working closely with many of the most effective groups in the nation such as the Cincinnati Tea Party, New York’s Tea Party 365, the Florida Alliance, and the Dallas Tea Party.

American Majority’s Training Bomb on September 17^th will not only be the biggest one-day training of conservative activists ever, but American Majority is going to be introducing new lectures, new manuals, and new projects. Help us make the day a success by signing up and spreading the word. Together we can, and will, make the right change happen in this country.

I still find it strange when those who claim they believe in free enterprise, limited government, reducing government intervention in the marketplace and fiscal responsibility, suddenly take an “Everywhere but in my house” approach. I am referring to the more than 80 House Republicans, many of whom claim to be conservatives, who are co-sponsoring H.R. 1380, otherwise known as the Pickens Plan after Texas energy tycoon, T. Boone Pickens.

The bill revolves around several main arguments, the first of which is that America must become energy independent.I fully agree with those sentiments: America only produces 5 million barrels of oil a day, yet consumes 20 million, meaning 75% of our oil comes from other producers, some of whom have no love for this country.The second argument builds off the first: we must tap into American energy sources to gain more independence.Again, I completely agree with that argument. The third argument is that natural gas is one of the best American energy resources, therefore we must tap into it, as we have more than 100 years of natural gas that we can produce domestically. There is of course nothing wrong with any of the above arguments.

But where the Pickens Plan starts to go awry is when you look at the nuts and bolts of how the Plan would work. First, as many know, American cars and big rigs don’t currently run on natural gas, so there would have to be a massive overhaul of vehicles. The plan calls for each big rig to get a $64,000 subsidy for the conversion from diesel to natural gas. With around 8 million large trucks on American highways right now, you can do the math and figure out what the price tag is.It’s one thing to convert big rigs to natural gas. Once that happens, you then have to overhaul thousands of fuel stations across the country that would need to have natural gas available.But don’t worry: the Plan gives a $100,000 tax credit for every station that converts to natural gas.I won’t even really touch on the conversion of cars to natural gas, but there are provisions in the plan that have, by the time it’s all added up, a $11,500 subsidy for every natural gas car.

What is really being discussed with the Pickens Plan is a complete overhaul of our transportation system, which will cost hundreds of billions of dollars, as National Review has pointed out, for very minimal profit; $4 billion by one estimate.And the person who just happens to benefit the most?Someone heavily invested in the natural gas business by the name of T. Boone Pickens.

Now I define crony capitalism, or political entrepreneurship, as someone rigging the political system and trying to use government, and the taxpayer, for personal profit. I have a fundamental problem with that: the free enterprise system is not about the government picking winners and losers, or about individuals manipulating the system to take a shortcut to profits off the backs of the American taxpayer.The Pickens Plan is about all of those things.

As the Dallas News reports, Pickens is the largest shareholder in Clean Energy Fuels (CEF), which owns and operates 200 natural gas stations across the country. CEF owns BAF, a Dallas-based company that just happens to convert vehicles to run on natural gas. And Mr. Pickens also owns mineral rights to almost 200,000 acres believed to have significant natural gas resources.So he wants to have legislation put in place that would create a demand for natural gas that would then create a need to convert cars and big rigs to run on natural gas which would of course need stations to refuel as well.He’s got all the bases covered.

While I again applaud the idea of energy independence, and of more domestic production of our own energy, I have a hard time buying any of the arguments of the Pickens Plan except the energy independence one. First, and I mean this somewhat facetiously, any plan or bill that Al Gore, Barack Obama and Harry Reid support, I’m probably against (yes, all are for the Pickens Plan). On a more serious note, is natural gas the most logical starting point for energy independence? I have a very hard time believing that. Converting much of our cars and big rigs for hundreds of billions of dollars, with taxpayers and consumers taking the lions’ share of that burden, does not make sense.

A far better and simpler approach, and one that is far more realistic, is for Congress and the Administration to lift the ban on domestic offshore drilling, and increasing onshore permits instead of manipulating the market with the Pickens Plan.You want more jobs? Well, I’ll go with Occam’s razor and say the simplest answer to us getting energy independence right now is this: get more oil rigs opened up. I know that will horrify the poor environmentalists out there, but the norm over the past decades with oil drilling has been responsible and environmentally friendly, not Exxon Valdez or Deepwater Horizon. Each oil rig brings with it somewhere in the neighborhood of 800-1400 jobs. New rigs means more domestic oil, moving us towards energy independence, and with enough production, will drive the costs of fuel down (you don’t think more domestic production won’t cause international producers to sell cheaper oil?).

We have billions of barrels of oil on (or rather, under) American territory and right off our shores.While I’m realistic in understanding that America probably can’t produce 20 million barrels of oil a day to meet our needs, think about this: we used to, roughly 40 years ago, produce 10 million barrels a day domestically. Now we only produce 5 million, leaving a 15 million gap. We can significantly close that gap in 5 years if Congress is truly serious about this country becoming less dependent on foreign oil. The answers and solutions are very simple, if our elected officials will use their heads and have just a touch of political courage.

The answer to our dependence on foreign oil is not the Pickens Plan in its current form. If Mr. Pickens believes that there is a demand and market for natural gas, and a profit to be made, then he should be encouraged to take that risk, and not burden the American taxpayers with both the risk and cost. In many ways, this plan encapsulates why the tea party rose up in 2009 complete frustration with government spending, fiscal gamesmanship, and too much government interference in the marketplace. Many Americans, of which the tea partiers are the early adopters, want less government intervention, not more. The Pickens Plan calls for more government intervention and a solution that is shortsighted when it comes to achieving our ultimate goals. The Republican co-sponsors of this bill, if they truly believe in free enterprise, and less government, need to reject the crony capitalism and corporate welfare of the Pickens Plan, remove themselves from the bill and take a far broader, more effective, less expensive approach to energy independence, and I’d encourage those reading this to give the Republican co-sponsors a call and ask them to get off the bill.

On Saturday, standing on the state capitol steps in Madison, Wisconsin, I saw history. I saw the first public, physical manifestation of the great struggle between the tea party movement and the public sector unions. At stake: the future freedom and prosperity of this country.

On one side of the debate, you have freedom loving Americans who are the taxpayers, the ones who fund our government and are the heart and soul of this great nation. On the other, those who would seek to ride on the backs of the taxpayers as they take this country down a path of statism.

This is the great fight right now: freedom vs. statism, and the ones of the front lines for freedom are the tea partiers. They have been, and are continuing to, answer the bell time and time again in this crucial time in American history. They’ve been mocked and reviled, questioned, but they are America’s best hope to turn this magnificent nation back to a path of freedom and prosperity and away from destructive statism.

What I saw in Madison on Saturday was amazing. Thursday morning, the American Majority staff in Wisconsin and some local tea party leaders, Meg Ellefson and Tim Dake, along with Dave Westlake, decided there should be a rally in support of Governor Scott Walker and his Budget Repair Bill. In roughly 48 hours, it went from idea to reality, from a few people talking to 10,000 rallying on the steps of the capitol.

Within hours of announcing there would be a rally, I got a call that Andrew Breitbart was in. An hour later, Herman Cain said he would be there. Then Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit was roped in. The next morning, I got ahold of Joe the Plumber and asked if he would record some robo calls to promote the event. He not only said yes, but he hopped in the car to drive from Ohio to speak at the rally. Then Andrew mentioned that Brad Thor, the New York Times bestselling author, would be willing to speak. I said sign him up. Then Tim Phillips of AFP offered to fund some of the buses to bring people in. I said great, and then he too came and spoke at the rally.

I diverted my flight home from Southern California, landed in Chicago at 1am Saturday morning, and got up at the crack of dawn to drive up with Jim Hoft, Andrew, Brad, Andrew Marcus of Founding Bloggers, and the rest of the posse. Our four car caravan rolled into Madison around 11am, and I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect. Fox News asked how many we were expecting in a interview and hour before the rally was to begin, and I said we expected thousands.

Of course there were just a few more than a couple of thousand, with reports of at least 10,000; there were even reports of 15,000, though that number strikes me as being high. But I keep on thinking, even today, “All of that in less than 48 hours.” All the credit goes to the American Majority staff in Wisconsin, the magnificent local tea party leaders and others who worked behind the scenes to make the event happen.

The battle between the tea partiers and public sector unions was joined Saturday in Madison. It will play out over the coming days, weeks, months, even years, in Ohio, Florida, Indiana and other states. There is no doubt that the public sector unions are better organized and have more funding. But I’m putting my money on the tea partiers because I believe that in reality they represent the significant majority of the American people, and the American people are saying it’s time to get back to what has made us great: limited government, free enterprise and individual freedom.

From the diaries by Erick

When House Republicans rolled out the Pledge to Americalast fall, my first thought was, “Not exactly a roar here. More like a squeak.” Return spending back to 2008 levels? Ooohh, knock me over with a feather at the decisive nature of that one. Cut $100 billion from non-security discretionary spending in 2011? Wow. We’re how many trillions in debt and we’re going to cut $100 billion? That’s on the level of exfoliating an elephant and then saying the elephant was significantly reduced in size.

At least the Pledge, a word synonomous with promise,is a start, albeit a whimper of one. But it was a specific promise: $100 billion in FY11. The good folks over at Heritage Action pointed out that Paul Ryan‘s recently proposed budget would actually only cut $58 billion and leave $42 billion on the table. Now we’re hearing all sorts of gobbly-gook (which is a highly technical term for “We’re spinning the bejesus out of this one and hoping no one notices.”) from House leaders that the $58 billion is pro-rated, a formulated number that if it were for a full year, it would actually be $100 billion. Enough already. Either the Republicans in the House will do what they said they were going to do, or they will be called out for shameless posturing and face the voters in 2012.

I think Republicans (and for truth in advertising, I am still registered as one) in both the House and the Senate would do well to remember that they were not elected because there was great love for them. There is still deep skepticism about Republicans in Congress from many in the tea party movement. Republicans were voted in not out of love, but because they were not the other guys. The leash on which the Republicans, and quite frankly all elected officials, are operating, is a very short one. The House GOP doesn’t quite seem to get that yet. A friend expressed disappointment not long ago with the Republican leaders, and I replied, “The mistake you make is that you came looking for lions, but all you’ll find are mice, scurrying about, squeaking about how bold they are.” In a time when bold leadership is needed, perhaps those mice can start acting like lions, but I doubt it.

From the diaries by Erick

There’s been a lot of chatter about Mike Pence and a potential Presidential bid by him. From National Review to the Washington Examiner, to George Will to others at the Washington Post, even to Erick’s post here on RedState, people are wondering will he or won’t he. Supposedly he’s making his decision this weekend about whether he will run for President or Governor of Indiana.

I think he should run. While not denigrating the other potential GOP candidates for President in 2012, ask yourself: do any of them really excite you? That should clear out half the field right there, if not three fourths. Then ask yourself who has held true to his or her principles under fire, time and time again? I’m not saying standing up and proclaiming this or that: words mean nothing to me. It’s what you actually do, and Mike Pence’s voting record has shown from No Child Left Behind to Medicare Part D to TARP to the stimulus bill, even taking a stand against the recent tax compromise, he has talked and walked the walk.

Then ask who you think has the ability to excite the base and not alienate independents? Keep asking yourself questions along these lines, and throw in the fact that Mike Pence is a very good communicator of the ideas we hold dear, and you start to realize a Mike Pence for President bid could really take off.

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For Liam Gabriel, born Dec. 24, 2008, 14 weeks premature. Died April 20, 2009. He was taken into God’s arms and sings with the angels.

I’ve never written about an episode from several years ago, aside from a few blog entries for friends and family, but the week of the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I want to share it because I always want to remember what took place and that I saw a miracle.

I found myself at 3 a.m. the morning of November 4^th, 2008, standing next to my wife’s hospital bed, holding her hand, having watched her hemorrhage off and on for several days, physically and emotionally exhausted, listening to the doctors tell us, “Very large blood clots are forming, and all the amniotic fluid is gone, and there is a very good chance this pregnancy will have to end today to protect your wife.” Our little girl, who we had decided to name Charlotte Love, was only gestationally 24-weeks old and four months from her due date.

It seemed to me that everything was spiraling out of control. Within a matter of 72 hours, we went from, “We think she’ll stay in the womb for several more months,” to “Maybe a few more weeks,” to, “We have hours.” I remember staring at that white wall of the hospital that night, powerless, feeling as though I was being inexorably being pulled to the edge of a cliff. My heels were dug in, but I was unable to stop the forward motion and now I had come to the very edge, of what I didn’t know.

But that morning there was a pause in the fight: I knew there was no point in the fighting, in the struggling. I don’t believe in chance, but in a “Divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we may.” There are very interesting conversations you have with yourself in moments like I was experiencing. As a Christian, I want God’s will for my life, and I believe His will is perfect. What I was experiencing was not chance, but His will. As you take yourself thru a series of questions, answering in the affirmative, it leads you to certain conclusions, and mine was that if His will is perfect, and this was His will, then this was perfection. Of course I will be the first to tell you it did not feel like perfection.

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From the diaries by Erick

At American Majority, we have believed since the Tea Party movement began that in order for it to remain a potent force for real and lasting change, it must grow from the ground up. The movement always has been, and always will be, about the local leaders and organizing as “close to the ground” as possible.

I, and many in the Tea Party movement, am not interested in change for one or two election cycles. I am hoping for generational change, but for that to happen, the work must begin as locally as possible. Let’s face it: the political movements that are long-term and sustainable over time go down to as local a level as possible and organize, not only organizing precincts, but running candidates for every level of office.

Less than two weeks ago, American Majority and local tea party leaders from around the country launched the New Leaders Project. The Project is aimed at getting 1,000 local tea party and 9.12 groups to identify 10 new leaders in their communities to run primarily for state and local office in 2011 and 2012. In the effort, there will be some identified that will run for federal office. Another key aspect of this project will be training campaign managers to run effective campaigns, and continuing to train activists on how to be effective grassroots workers in hardiwiring precincts, doing GOTV, and conducting voter registration drives.

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