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Faith & Cultureby Rod D. Martin
January 2, 2013
The following post was originally published as a letter to the membership of the NFRA at www.RepublicanAssemblies.org.
Nothing better demonstrates the need for an NFRA [ed. — “National Federation of Republican Assemblies”] and a robust Republican Assembly movement in every state than the “fiscal cliff” deal just passed.
Note well: nearly all the House Republicans voted against the deal, as did key Senators like Marco Rubio, Mike Lee, etc. The tax-and-spend nightmare is brought to you by the Dems: Obama, Reid, and nearly every single House Democrat. Boehner will get his come-uppance shortly.
That said, it’s not fair to cast what the Boehner group did as a “sell out”: from where they’re sitting, they managed to make permanent the vast majority of the Bush tax cuts and avoid draconian, devastating spending cuts to our military in time of war. That much is admirable. These are good guys who took the best deal they thought they could get.
The issue is not that they “sold out”: again, they did not.
The issue is that they’re idiots.
Why? Because all money bills must originate in the House: Obama cannot so much as add one paperclip to this government if the House refuses to pay for it. They have way more power than they think. They can force Obama to heel in a thousand ways. They aren’t sell-outs: they’re just terrible negotiators.
Our friend and former DCRA [ed. — “District of Columbia Republican Assembly”] President Grover Norquist says that the 85 House Republicans who voted for the deal deserve “political cover” in that they certainly did not vote to raise taxes. He’s right. The Bush tax cuts having lapsed, every one of them was not only voting for a tax cut, they were voting for it to be made permanent, something the Dems have prevented since 2001. This is admirable. It’s even an achievement.
It’s just not leadership.
We have to quit with this juvenile false dichotomy of “faithful” vs. “sell-out”. It’s rarely that simple. None of our guys sold us out last night. Faithfulness is not their problem: competence is. Remember, Neville Chamberlain was not a traitor, just a really bad negotiator. If he’d been serving in a Churchill-led government, he’d have voted just fine. What we need is some musical chairs. Now.
Boehner is the world’s worst negotiator, and a truly bad leader. But he’ll make a great, faithful, loyal, highly conservative back-bencher; and without him holding a whip over their heads, most of the rest of that 85 will vote better too. They’d vote a lot better with a truly good set of leaders.
This is exactly why the NFRA exists: to elect capable conservatives to those “minor” offices no one seems to care about, like state and national party offices, platform committees, rules committees, the RNC, and of course, this much much higher level of Civics 101 we’ve been groaning about today. God bless the Tea Party, but if the Tea Party thinks its job is done by electing a few great Congressmen, it has not adequately understood the lifelong slog our Founders — those first Tea Partiers — signed up for and then lived.
So as you start your new year, you could have no better motivator. You exist to correct the problem America just saw. Yes, we hunt RINOs; but lots of people do that. We actually train and elect capable conservative leaders. We solve the problems that pop up after November; we fight the elections after the election.
Someone has to. The fiscal cliff debacle shows nothing if not that.
Teach this lesson to your Tea Party friends well; and after you do, watch us get radically stronger, and daily better able to fight and defeat the socialist onslaught.
Rod is one of our nation’s leading minds. He’s smart, original, and very committed—a combination that one rarely finds.
Rod Martin and [former Howard Dean campaign manager] Joe Trippi are America’s two foremost experts on online politics.
Rod Martin is a Reaganite-Thatcherite conservative…[and] a man who has spent much of his life ministering to and working for the benefit of others. I know Rod as an advocate for freedom, a leader who understands the real changes we need in Washington, and who has the drive and ability to make those changes happen.
Rod Martin is the kind of dynamic leader who has the knowledge, ability and experience to lead us successfully into the 21st Century. His vision for America is compelling.
Rod Martin literally wrote the book on excellence. Humble yet brilliant, a man of love and compassion, with penetrating clarity he illuminates the world around us, and we are both stirred and enlightened.
Rod Martin is a born leader and an outstanding political mind. Anyone who takes him on is going to have a serious fight on their hands.
Rod Martin is a man of uncommon vision and character. Ever since I first worked alongside Rod in the early days of PayPal, I’ve been struck by his powerful vision for the future. Rod understands the intersection of technology, politics and culture in a way that few others do.
Rod Martin wears with uncommon grace an uncanny ability to link his vigorous faith to the practical challenges of both the business world and the political arena. Yet the respect he shows for others carries a warmth and modesty that are both too rare among those who are strong advocates of feisty positions.
America badly needs more leaders who really get the future. We need more Rod Martins.
Rod Martin is a modern day philosopher-statesman. He is a capitalist intellectual, a conservative iconoclast, a gentle adversary and a kind prophet. He inspires us towards a fresh national vision built upon the original founding principles.
Rod Martin is not only effective and efficient, but he is also perceptive, wise and gracious. He gets things done. He is a great friend and a great ally.
Rod is one of the sharpest, most gracious men I know, and one of the most gifted political thinkers today. His ability to analyze issues and communicate thoughtful insights on them have earned him the respect of people across the political spectrum.
I am proud to have been Rod Martin’s friend for a quarter century, and I can tell you that he is one of the finest men and most outstanding leaders in our church and in our country today. He has a knack for turning everything he touches to success.
Rod Martin is a cornucopian entrepreneur and eutropic thinker whose influence radiates through an array of companies, institutions, movements and churches. A renaissance American, he is also a prolific friend of freedom and faith around the globe.
If Rod Martin represents the next generation of leaders, America has nothing to worry about.
A leader and a servant, in public life and in private, Rod Martin strides at the top of his profession, and has nowhere to go but up. He is in the truest sense of the word ‘outstanding’.
Rod Martin is undoubtedly one of the most accomplished thought leaders today. He is a wonderful mentor, a humble role model, and a deep inspiration for the next generation of scientific innovators and entrepreneurs.
Rod’s achievements pale beside his character and his brilliance. He sees what others can’t. He leads when others won’t.
Rod Martin is one of America’s finest young minds.