A blogger at the popular progressive blog Daily Kos has attempted to smear many Americans with a very wide brush of anti-Islamic bigotry, while at the same time espousing a decidedly bizarre progressive view of the worst terror attack in this nation’s history:

…a new CNN poll  that shows that 68% of the nation opposes the construction of the community center in Manhattan. The question asked was about a mosque which I find a little misleading, and it used the inflammatory “Ground Zero” name for the site of the Twin Towers,  but that is not really the point. This new data shows a couple of things that we know already to be true. First off, the majority when asked their opinion will almost always be against the rights of a minority. This is a particular hot issue because of the 9/11 attacks where carried out by Muslims, but it is to be expected even if that were not the case.

Muslims are only a small minority in the United States, with somewhere between 1.3 million and 7 million of our citizens being practitioners of this faith. This makes Muslims between .3% and 2.1% of the over all population. However world wide the followers of Islam are closer to 25% of the planetary population.

Given that they are such a small minority in this nation, it is odd that so many of our fellow citizens see them as such a threat. Yes, the 9/11 attacks were horrific, but they were more about optics than actual harm. The economy was already taking a hit before the Twin Towers fell.  The reaction of the nation to seeing two major buildings in New York fall on T.V. has boosted the attack out of proportion. While the loss of even a single life is to be condemned and the devastation these deaths caused the families of those killed, more than this number of teens are killed every year in car crashes. These are also tragic losses but we do not make the kind of high profile issue of it that the 9/11 attacks are.

It is this sort of disconnected, community-based reality that these elitists have fabricated for themselves that had led the majority of the nation to find these elitists not just out of touch, but dangerously out of step with the rest of the nation.

There is certainly plenty of room to debate whether or not the contested Islamic community center and mosque being proposed in lower Manhattan is appropriate. There is room to debate whether or not whether Islam, as a oppressive and intractably conjoined mixture of religion and political movement, is what the Founders meant to extend unlimited protections to under the First Amendment.

Trivializing the losses of 9/11, both personal and cultural, is not a way to win your argument.

To Big Media, conservatism comes in only one flavor, social conservatism, namely anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage and a smattering of other issues that would fall flat over canapés and seltzer (liberals don’t seem to drink anymore). That Dede was pro-choice and pro-gay marriage fits the narrative perfectly for the media. End of story.

But, the media, and political leaders would be wise to dig a bit deeper into the story. Yes, Dede was pro-choice and pro-gay marriage, but she was also pro-government spending, pro-taxes and pro-Big Labor, to name just a few other issues. When a Republican candidate regularly seeks out the endorsement of ACORN and wins the endorsement of DailyKos, it isn’t much of a stretch to imagine that large segments of the party might have some misgivings about supporting the candidate. (And they would be right, since she has now endorsed the Democrat in the race.)

The media and the national Republicans who backed Dede are furiously spinning her withdrawal as meaning that pro-choice and pro-gay marriage candidates ‘need not apply’ for the GOP ticket. The media is warning that, unless the GOP nominates, ‘moderates’ the public will reject the party’s candidates and condemn it to perpetual minority status. Right, the media is worried about this.  I find it is generally wise to be skeptical of advice given me by my opponents.

Both the media and national Republicans are overstating the relevance of social issues at a time when most voters are fearful about keeping their jobs. Many people may care about these issues, but they aren’t driving their political activism. An highly-energized large block of voters are actually really concerned that government has grown too big, too fast. They’re not clinging to ‘gods and guns’, as candidate Obama famously sneered opined; they’re clinging to their wallets.

Every year at CPAC, the annual conference of grass-roots conservative activists, they take a straw poll of attendee’s political views and priorities. One question asks whether the movement’s focus should be on “limiting the size and scope of government” or “protecting ‘traditional’ values.” For the last three years, attendees split roughly 50/50 on the question. This year, almost 75% of attendees voted that limiting the size of government was their top priority. Keep in mind, attendees at CPAC are generally the heart of the social conservative movement.

This year, the Washington Post—the most effective arm of the Virginia Democrat Party—thought it found the silver bullet to kill the gubernatorial campaign of republican Bob McDonnell. They unearthed a 20-year old thesis McDonnell wrote in college that contained some pretty embarrassing statements–at least by today’s standards—about whether, for example, families are better off if the wife doesn’t work outside the home. The Democrats based almost their entire campaign, and the Post based most of its coverage, on McDonnell’s thesis. It must chill them to the bone that McDonnell is set to win by one of the larger margins in state history. It isn’t that the public, or even McDonnell today, agrees with what’s in the thesis; they just don’t care.

The GOP ignores this lesson at their peril. It is entirely probable that, in today’s political climate, a pro-choice, pro-gay marriage Republican candidate who also opposed increased government spending, favored cutting taxes and rejected the demands of Big Labor would have romped to victory in upstate New York. Hoffman’s insurgent campaign wasn’t fueled by tapping into social conservatives, per se; it was fueled by tapping into the tea party movement. A movement that still perplexes the GOP, it seems.

Starting Tuesday, however, the American public is set to start handing back to the GOP huge swaths of political power. (I think it is better than even money the party sweeps VA, NJ and the special election in New York 23. Hell, they’ll probably even come relatively close in a special election for Congress in the San Francisco Bay Area!) I don’t think even the mandarins running the national GOP are incompetent enough to prevent this.

Well, actually, there probably is something they could do to prevent this; continue to misread the national mood and political zeitgeist. Just as generals risk fighting the last war, national Republicans risk fighting the last election cycle. I think the national party leadership, cocooned in DC, saw a district in upstate New York that was carried by Obama and then went searching for a Republican who was pro-choice and failed to look any deeper into other issues.  In other words, they took the advice of Big Media. I know from personal experience that the GOP in DC doesn’t fully appreciate the grass-roots movement that has erupted around the country this year. They continue to look through a political prism calibrated on one or two formerly hot-button issues. They don’t appreciate how much the political landscape has changed. That is the real source of their missteps in New York.

I leave to others the task of asking whether those responsible for the Dede campaign should be allowed even within the same time-zone of future political campaigns, but I think it bears repeating—perhaps screaming—that the GOP spent almost $1 million on a candidate who then proceeded to drop like a stone into third place. (She might have fallen further but for the fact that there are only three candidates in the race.)  It does not inspire confidence that these individuals are ready for prime time. Republicans are appropriately calling for audits of ACORN. They might want to audit the NRCC as well.

While piling on idiotic national Republicans is a fun parlor game, there is a lesson here for the tea party movement as well. Just yesterday I received an email from a congressional candidate who has decided to pull out of the GOP primary and wage a third-party ‘conservative’ campaign next November. This candidate is drawing the wrong lesson from New York’s 23^rd District. First, New York has unique election rules that have allowed third parties to prosper. The dynamics in play in New York simply can’t be replicated elsewhere. There were many variables, beyond those that have been generally reported, that will make a repeat of the Hoffman phenomenon elsewhere difficult.

By forgoing a primary, this candidate is missing an opportunity to reform the GOP. Worse, by channeling the tea party movement into some kind of angry, Perot-inspired third party, there is a real risk that the left will get a reprieve from the voters’ boiling-over anger. Dede certainly deserved opposition from anyone who claims any belief in limited government. But she is also, likely (hopefully), a special case. The tea party movement should be careful, however, that it doesn’t evolve into some kind of politburo, forever patrolling for apostates and conducting purges. I’m a big believer in bitter primary fights, as long as the fights stay within the family. 

Because, even if we don’t like it, the GOP is probably our last, best chance to reverse course and regain some personal liberty and economic prosperity. Maybe not the GOP as it is now, but as it was and could be again. I’m old enough to remember a time when the party had an institutional aversion to using government to ‘solve’ our problems. I remember when the party gave a lot more than lip-service to the notion that adults should be free to make their own choices, both for good and ill. I remember a time when Ronald Reagan said the heart and soul of the conservative movement was libertarianism. 

The tea parties and summer townhalls have proved the public is ready again for this message. More than that, the public is demanding this message. They are far ahead of the national leadership of the GOP. (The national Democrats are simply hopeless and are marching lock-step into a political buzzsaw.) As in upstate New York, the public may even force the GOP to adopt/return to this message. Hopefully, the GOP will seize the opportunity that has been handed to them. Hopefully, the tea party movement will give the GOP the chance to do it. At the end of the day, the political enemy is over on the left.

But, she has also picked up the support of the DailyKos, not a traditionally deep well of support for Republicans. Oh, and ACORN’s Working Families Party. Below is a memo Big Government obtained circulating among leaders of the conservative movement. It is from New York State Conservative Party Chair, Mike Long:

Donors to the Republican National Congressional Committee have a right to expect their support will help candidates who are broadly in accord with the Republican Party’s fundamental principles. 

There is little doubt, in these lean times, Americans who make contributions to the NRCC would be shocked to learn their dollars are actually supporting the campaign of an unrepentant liberal who opposes the central achievements of today’s Republican Congressional delegation.

Yet that is exactly to sad a state of affairs we now confront.  The NRCC is using the contributions of loyal Republicans across the country to fund the Congressional bid of Liberal New York State Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava. 

Assemblywoman Scozzafava supports the Obama tax-and-spend Stimulus Package – - the same package the Republicans now in Congress unanimously rejected.  She defends the kind of earmarked pork-barrel spending that cost Republicans so much credibility in the last election.  She supports Big Labor’s card check attack on the secret ballot.  And she twice voted to legalize gay marriage.

Assemblywoman Scozzafava wasn’t picked by the voters.  Party bosses selected her, reportedly with the guidance and direction of the NRCC. 

So, what is at stake here is more than the risk of electing yet another Arlen Specter-style liberal Republican.  This is a battle about the soul and future of the Republican Party.

Some think the way to win elections is to mimic the Democrats, to offer the voters “liberal-lite” in hopes of finding accommodation with the Democrats and success at the polls.

The NRCC’s support for liberal Assemblywoman Scozzafava is a disturbing indication that the NRCC is test marketing a campaign message blurring the differences between the parties instead of principled opposition to the liberal Democrats’ agenda.  

The “me-to” approach is both sure to fail politically and deeply dishonest to the NRCC’s core financial supporters.  The donors who sacrifice to write checks to the NRCC don’t expect their efforts to be diverted to liberals like Assemblywoman Scozzafava.

Accordingly, while we are all friends of the NRCC, we reluctantly call for a moratorium on any financial contributions to the NRCC until that organization ceases support for Assemblywoman Scozzafava and clarifies its plans for candidate recruitment and support going forward.

There are great opportunities ahead for the Republicans in Congress.  Those opportunities cannot be squandered by political miscalculations and a lack of faith in the central values of the Republican Party.

Sincerely,

Mike Long

Chairman, New York State Conservative Party

It isn’t mentioned in the memo, but Scozzafava has run for the state Assembly repeatedly with the endorsement of ACORN’s Working Families Party. The WFP was formed for the express purpose of pushing the Democratic party to the left. The principle-bending gymnastics involved for a Republican to seek out their endorsement are positively mind-boggling.

Count us as big believers in the “big tent’ theory of political parties. No matter how large you want to build your tent, though, it still has to be built on a solid foundation. You’d think Republicans could agree that ACORN’s Working Families party–based on what we know right now–wouldn’t have a place there.

Those of you who think a GOP return to the majority in 2010 will right what ails us should keep this in mind.

He said so in his new book, Citizen Wealth: Winning the Campaign to Save Working Families, in which he serves up some community organizing war stories, and offers his thoughts on the future of organizing. Rathke’s currently on a cross-country book tour.

ACORN founder Wade Rathke (to the right of the microphone) at an ACORN-SEIU rally.

Rathke, a pioneer of the so-called welfare rights movement that aims to get Americans on welfare, devotes an entire chapter of his book to what he calls “The ‘Maximum Eligible Participation’ Solution.” It is a strategy for orchestrated crisis that savvy leftist groups across America are likely to embrace. He writes:

“[I]t is hard to believe that we cannot assemble the troops to mount a campaign for maximum eligible participation that harvests the opportunities and dollars already available if we could achieve full utilization of existing programs.”

Rathke acknowledges his support for the Cloward-Piven Strategy, an approach to radical social and political change articulated by Marxist university professors Richard A. Cloward and Frances Fox Piven in a 1966 Nation article, “The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty.” The two academics called for “a massive drive to recruit the poor onto the welfare rolls” in an effort to overwhelm the system. [Italics in original.]

The strategy helped to bankrupt New York City in 1975. Years later, the Big Apple’s mayor, Rudy Giuliani, denounced the academic activists by name. “This wasn’t an accident,” Giuliani argued in a 1997 speech. “It wasn’t an atmospheric thing, it wasn’t supernatural. This is the result of policies and programs designed to have the maximum number of people get on welfare.”

In the Nation article, Cloward and Piven made it clear that they were irritated that plenty of Americans legally eligible to receive forcibly redistributed wealth hadn’t bothered to ask for handouts. “The discrepancy is not an accident stemming from bureaucratic inefficiency; rather, it is an integral feature of the welfare system which, if challenged, would precipitate a profound financial and political crisis.”

In his book Rathke hails “Cloward and Piven’s exciting call to arms.” He notes that the activist group they created and that he organized for in the late 1960s, the now-defunct National Welfare Rights Organization, caused “a flood tide from its work that allowed many boats to rise, including the level of participation in government assistance programs.”

In an interview with DailyKos blogger Robert Ellman, Rathke complains bitterly that Americans are not getting all the government benefits to which they are legally entitled. (The podcast is available here.)

With one question, Ellman unwittingly lays bare the anti-social, profoundly un-American entitlement mentality that so many on the far left possess. The blogger asks if the “lack of participation” in food stamps, Medicaid, and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), all of which many eligible people are not claiming, is “a failure of government, political will, or a culture that demonizes poor people?”

The unctuous Rathke, whom some have called a cult leader, doesn’t miss an opportunity to compliment his interviewer. “Once again you’ve hit the trifecta,” he says. “It’s really all three of those things.”

Rathke quotes approvingly from a New York Times op-ed by his fellow progressive poverty pimp, Barbara Ehrenreich, in which he says she does

a devastating job of looking at the fact that we’re still criminalizing poor people, requiring fingerprints in states like Florida and Texas and California. For even simple welfare applications and food stamp applications, we are going out of our way, and she quotes chapters and verse from various professors, to make it almost easier to do anything in the world other than get benefits that people are legally entitled to.

Incidentally, ACORN knows all about food stamps. Even though people on welfare shouldn’t be trying to buy homes, ACORN cajoled banks into accepting food stamps as income on mortgage applications and then bragged about it.

Returning to the interview, soon Rathke’s comments bring to mind the Will Rogers quip, “Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.” Laying out a strategy for orchestrated crisis for the Information Age, Rathke says:

If we just did the job that we needed to do to make sure everything that’s legally entitled to people actually finally gets to people we would make a huge difference in creating citizen wealth and family security. And there’s no reason not to do this. This is a highly technical age. Why we’re forcing everybody to fill out a million forms, come up with a million different pieces of paper when we could do almost all of it through computers, do it quickly, verify it, keep the records, you know, in PDFs or scanned documents or whatever. There’s a lot of people who know how to do this more than you and I, but this could be a huge breakthrough in eligibility.

Rathke asks, “Why not have computers in grocery stores and community centers — and they are in many libraries now — and in churches and synagogues so that people in working communities have easy access to the software to apply for these benefits.”

What Rathke doesn’t explain is that President Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress made it much easier a few months ago for those like him who want to overload the system in order to bring about its demise.

That’s because the spectacularly successful Clinton era welfare reforms that helped millions of Americans break free from crippling dependency on the public fisc were summarily executed in February. Provisions buried deep in the stimulus package signed by President Obama, who used to work for ACORN, offer new financial incentives to states to increase their welfare caseloads.

ACORN, whose national board fired Rathke a year ago for gross misconduct, won’t have any difficulty causing the next welfare crisis without him, assuming it isn’t shut down by authorities for racketeering or election fraud.

Meanwhile, Rathke isn’t content merely to screw up America.

Like a modern-day Karl Marx in exile, he is doing his best to spread the wealth all around the globe, spreading social justice and shakedown techniques.

After the humiliation of being fired for an eight-year cover-up of his brother Dale’s nearly $1 million embezzlement of ACORN funds, Rathke remains deeply involved with at least three of ACORN’s more than 100 affiliated nonprofits. (Just this past weekend America learned in a New York Post article by Ginger Adams Otis what Dale blew his ill-gotten gains on.)

He recently changed the name of ACORN’s international consultancy, ACORN International, to Community Organizations International. Rathke also remains chief organizer, or CEO, of the New Orleans-based Local 100 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), another ACORN affiliate he founded. He does not appear to have stepped down as president and director of Affiliated Media Foundation Movement (AM/FM), an ACORN affiliate that produces news segments for eight alternative radio stations.

Although Rathke has long drawn inspiration from Saul Alinsky’s legendary political strategy book, Rules for Radicals, he only believes in rules if they benefit him.

To this day he continues to defy the resolution approved on a vote of 29 to 14 by ACORN’s national board on June 20, 2008. It declared that Rathke “be terminated from all employment with ACORN and its affiliated organizations or corporations” and that he “be removed from all boards & any leadership roles with ACORN or its affiliated organizations or corporations.”

Alinsky, who taught the importance of flexibility, would be proud.

(This article is an updated version of an article that ran in the American Spectator in July of this year.)