On this day in Texas history: Gun battle follows 1886 city election in Laredo

From the TSHA:

On this day in 1886, one of the biggest gun battles in the history of the American West broke out on the day after a city election in Laredo. In 1884 two political factions in Laredo and Webb counties designated themselves as Botas and Guaraches. The Botas ("Boots"), led by Raymond Martin and José María Rodríguez, were essentially the "wealthy" class, although they drew much support from the less fortunate. The reform club, which adopted the slogan Guaraches ("Sandals") to symbolize the lower class, included Santos Benavides and, later, Darío Gonzales. In the city election of 1886, the Guaraches won only two seats on the Laredo city council. In their celebration the following day, the Botas paraded the streets of Laredo promising to bury a Guarache in effigy. After the Guaraches attacked the Bota parade, as many as 250 men became involved in the fighting at one time or another. It took two companies of the Sixteenth United States Infantry and one company of the Eighth Cavalry to restore peace. Although the official number of dead in what was called the Laredo Election Riot was placed at sixteen, unofficial reports placed the number as high as thirty, with as many as forty-five wounded.

Great story. This link takes you to further information about the two political factions in the city - the Boots and Sandals. The two eventually reconciled:

Although the bitter rivalry between the two parties continued, the Botas and Guaraches joined forces against the Texas Prohibition party in 1887. In 1888 a few leaders from the two parties joined to form the Laredo Immigration and Improvement Society. After the Guaraches elected their first mayor, Andrew H. Thaison, in 1895, factions from both the Botas and Guaraches came together to form the Independent Club. The Independent party or "Partido Viejo" as it came to be called on the border, dominated Laredo and Webb County politics under the patrón system until 1978. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, political factions in Duval and La Salle counties were also known from time to time as either Botas or Guaraches

Can Obama exploit divisions in the House Republican Party?

One of my favorite subjects is factions and the nature if divisions within American politics, and especially with American political parties. Very smart polisci guy John Judis has a piece in the New Republic that includes an analysis of the current divisions with the nation Republican Party - especially among Republicans in the House of Representatives. Remember that since House members are elected from relatively small districts, they are more likely to represent smaller, more ideologically clear constituents.

Judis argues that the compromises Obama made in the recent fiscal cliff deal - where certain issues like sequestration and dealing with the debt ceiling were postponed for two months - were designed to allow him to exploit these divisions when it comes time to negotiate. We will see whether his analysis is correct soon enough, but for now this seems to be a good way to understand the nature of House Republican Caucus. Remember that a party in Congress is only powerful if they are unified. Democrats made gains in the recent election and if a dozen or so Republicans vote with them on issues where they are unified - they win.

Here's Judis' full article, and here is his look at the three key divisions within the party in the House:

There are at least three different kinds of divisions that have become visible. First is between the Senate and the House. Senate Republicans, who are in a minority, have proven more amenable to compromise on fiscal issues. Unlike most Republican House members, many senators can’t count on being re-elected by solid Republicans majorities. McConnell himself comes from a state where Democrats still hold most of the state offices.  

Secondly, there is a regional division in the party between the deep South, which contains many of the diehard House Republicans, and the Republicans from the Northeast, industrial Midwest, and the Far West. In the House vote on the fiscal cliff, Republican House members from the deep South opposed it by 83 to 10, while Republicans from the Northeast favored it by 24 to one, and those from the Far West by 17 to eight. After the Republican leadership refused to bring a Sandy hurricane relief bill to the floor before the end of the session – effectively killing it –  New York Republican Peter King called on New York and New Jersey Republicans to withhold donations to the GOP. New Jersey Governor Chris Christe blew his top at the House Republicans.

Third, there is a division among Republican lobbies, political organizations and interest groups that surfaced in the wake of the election and once again this week. It’s not easy to define, but it runs between pro-business conservatives, on the one hand,  and the right-wing libertarians of the Tea Party and Club for Growth and their billionaire funders. Grover Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform gave their approval the Senate bill. The Chamber of Commerce grudgingly endorsed the final bill, and the National Federation of Independent Business said the tax provisions were acceptable. The Club for Growth, the Koch Brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks (which itself has fallen under the sway of its most ideological elements), and the Tea Party Patriots opposed any compromise. 

These divisions don’t necessarily augur the kind of formal split that wrecked the Whig Party in the 1850s. Nor do they suggest widespread defection of Republicans into the Democratic Party as happened during the 1930s. There is still far too much distance between, say, McConnell and Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid. But they do suggest that a process of erosion is under way that will weaken the Republicans’ ability to maintain a united front against Democratic initiatives. That could happen in the debates over the sequester and debt ceiling if Obama and the Democrats make the kind of public fuss that they did over fiscal cliff. 

This analysis applies only to Republicans in the US House. Texas Republicans are far more unified, so we will see little division among members of the Texas delegation - they are ideologically very similar. Same goes for the Texas House, though the nature of local issues makes divisions far more likely in the Texas Legislature, but - with some exceptions - for local policy reasons, not ideological ones. So this analysis does not apply to internal state politics.

The Gender Gap 2012

A poll from Quinnipiac University shows Obama with an 18% lead over Romney among women.

Does Texas have five Republican Parties?

Apparently so. Here's one man's list:

The Mitt Romney-Joe Straus Party: business conservatives and gray-suit types interested in economic success and winning elections.

The Rick Perry-David Dewhurst Party: Gov. Rick Perry's coalition of establishment religious and business conservatives, united primarily by faith in Perry -- or fear of him.

The Ron Paul-Debra Medina Tea Party: U.S. Rep. Ron Paul's devout cost-cutters, with subsets following everything from militias to marijuana.

The Rick Santorum-Sarah Palin Tea Party: The same grassroots religious GOP we've always had, using the name Tea Party.

The Empower Texans-Michael Quinn Sullivan Party: Midland oil millionaire Tim Dunn's self-funded effort to take over all the other parties, with some success.

I make a consistent point in our discussion a about political parties that while we are a two party system, each party has competing factions within it. This seems to a rational guess about what factions exist within the Texas Republican Party at the moment.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/06/05/4010727/texas-is-lucky-to-have-five-republican.html#storylink=cpy

Can Ron and Rand Paul take over the Republican Party?

They're trying.

The author suggests they are building a "libertarian machine."

Debt Ceiling Rumble: Business vs. the Tea Party

Debt Ceiling Rumble: Business vs. the Tea Party

Here's more analysis of a key division within the Republican Party. So far, theTea Party faction seems to be winning the debt ceiling debate.

The Debt Ceiling Battle as of 7/15/11

Commentators see things looking bad for Republicans:

Jonathan Alter thinks Obama has won his ultimate objective, support from independents for 2012:

The good news for Obama is that the more liberals, lobbyists and apologists for the rich squawk, the more fiscally responsible he looks to the independent voters who will determine the election.

Better yet, under McConnell’s plan Obama would get credit for good budgetary intentions without blame for the pain, which will remain theoretical for now. At the risk of mixing dessert and vegetables, the “Big Fudge” lets him pose as a responsible pea eater without actually ingesting any of the wrinkled little suckers.

You can hear the centrist 2012 message now. “We wanted to slash the debt by $4 trillion and protect our children’s future,” the Democrats will say, conveniently forgetting how loud they’re bellyaching this week about their own president’s proposed cuts. “But the Republicans killed responsible deficit reduction to protect corporate jet owners.”Megan McArdle thinks that if we default and actual cuts are made and people see the consequence of that, the public will turn against the party. She chides them for not taking a very generous deal and jeopardizing electoral opportunities in 2012 and 2016:

Republicans have a decent shot of taking the White House and the Senate in 2012; by throwing that away with both hands they also throw away their best chance at repealing ObamaCare before it starts irrevocably altering health care markets. They also ensure that any deficit-reduction deal we do post election will be heavily weighted towards tax hikes; give Democrats a fresh crack at all the bits of the Obama agenda that they ignored in favor of passing health care; and probably let them preside over a mid-decade recovery that will leave the GOP in a very difficult electoral position in 2016.

The GOP will have taken a chance at meaningful entitlement reform and a mostly-spending budget deal, and thrown it away for literally no gain. Anything you can achieve by simply saying no, they can undo by simply persuading voters not to re-elect you. And the 1996 experience suggests that this will not be hard for them.Polls suggest support for tax increases has grown among the American public.

Rifts Within Both Parties Test Leaders in Budget Fight

From the NYT, a story illustrating internal divisions within both parties and how they are impacting the current stalement over appropriating funds for the 2011 budget:

On one level, the budget showdown that continued to play out here on Wednesday is all about the balance of power between the two parties, a question of whether President Obama has regained his footing and can still control the direction of the country or whether Speaker John A. Boehner and the Republicans are now calling the shots. But on another, it is a test of each man’s ability to weather challenges inside his own party.

The outcome will help determine whether Mr. Boehner is leading his party or following the demands of the Tea Party movement. For Mr. Obama, it is the biggest test yet of whether he can reposition himself as a pragmatic leader who can recapture the political center and keep liberals sufficiently energized to help him win re-election.

Divisions Within the Democratic Coalition

The Democratic Party has always been more diverse than the Republican Party, and though it generally leads to more people identifying with the party - though not recently - it creates a unique set of problems. The groups within the party do not always get along, and sometimes can be hostile towards each other.

Here are two current examples:

From WOAI San Antonio, evidence of tension between Latinos and gays and lesbians: Bexar County Democratic Chair Dan Ramos is in hot water after comments referring to gays, blacks, whites, and Jews outraged the community. The Texas Democratic Party Chairman, Boyd Richie, asked Ramos to resign. Richie accused Ramos of bigotry and creating chaos since his election a year ago.

On Friday, Ramos was quoted in the San Antonio Current. "He called Stonewall Democrats Nazi termites that have wormed their way into the party hierarchy," explained Dee Villarrubia, an openly gay Bexar County Democratic Deputy Chair who was elected in June. "I'm shocked and appalled," said Villarrubia. "Dan Ramos' comments are an affront to the founding principles of our democracy."

From KTRK, conflict between Latinos and African-Americans flare up over the recent sexual assault in Cleveland: On March 10, in Cleveland, there was a rally focused on the now 19 defendants accused of raping an 11-year-old girl. The event was organized by community activist Quanell X. The defendants are black and the girl is Hispanic.

Among Quanell X's statements at the event was, "How does a child get from one community to another and nobody in her home has any idea of what's going on? Stop by her parents' house and ask a serious question about how this happened from September to November and they knew nothing?"

On Monday, a group of Hispanic advocates pushed back.

"Transferring the responsibility of 19 perpetrators to the shoulders of this child's parents is unspeakable," said Yolanda Black Navarro with AAMA. "Comments made about this 11-year-old's way of dressing, her parents' supervision and/or lack thereof, is unacceptable."

Who Runs the Republican Party Right Now?

For my 2301s as we start to discuss elections and parties. This author argues that the Republican Party is currently being defined by "state activists and governors, " not by potential presidential candidates. This may not serve the party well in 2012. It does introduce a major point we will hit when we discuss the decentralized nature of political parties in the United States. At any one point in time it can be tough to determine who or what is in charge, what the party truly stands for, and who made that decision.

From Along for the Ride:

With the 2012 class coalescing so slowly, the initiative has flowed elsewhere. On Capitol Hill and in the states, Republican legislators and governors empowered by the party’s historic gains in 2010 are advancing aggressive agendas with major 2012 implications. Rather than influencing those ideas, the potential GOP presidential candidates are mostly racing after them.

The best example is in Wisconsin, where newly elected Gov. Scott Walker is seeking to revoke most collective-bargaining rights for public employees. Every major Republican presidential hopeful has endorsed Walker’s initiative—which has galvanized conservatives but ignited volcanic resistance from organized labor. The eventual Republican nominee may still consider that issue a winner in 2012. But regardless, he (or she) has already locked onto a position that will allow union leaders to present a GOP White House victory as a threat to the very existence of organized labor. That could electrify rank-and-file mobilization.

Something similar has already happened with Hispanics. Most of the major 2012 candidates have embraced Arizona’s tough anti-immigration law (except for Huckabee and Romney, who hedged). Again, the eventual nominee might consider that to be a winning issue next year. But if Republicans choose an Arizona-style hard-liner, Democrats will undoubtedly find it easier to portray the GOP ticket as hostile to a burgeoning Hispanic population.

Weakening Unions

Howard Finemann adds to the idea that the Wisconsin attempts to minimize the collective bargaining rights of public sector unions is part of a broader attempt to weaken a key supporter of the Democratic Party prior to the 2012 election. This is especially urgent since unions have the same expanded ability to engage in political activities following the Citizens United decision which rules they have the same free speech rights as people. He also reports that Republicans had expected to do far better in the 2010 elections than they did.

The real political math in Wisconsin isn't about the state budget or the collective-bargaining rights of public employees there. It is about which party controls governorships and, with them, the balance of power on the ground in the 2012 elections.

For all of the valid concern about reining in state spending -- a concern shared by politicians and voters of all labels -- the underlying strategic Wisconsin story is this: Gov. Scott Walker, a Tea Party-tinged Republican, is the advance guard of a new GOP push to dismantle public-sector unions as an electoral force.

Last fall, GOP operatives hoped and expected to take away as many as 20 governorships from the Democrats. They ended up nabbing 12.

What happened? Well, according to postgame analysis by GOP strategists and Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi -- who chaired the Republican Governors Association in 2010 -- the power and money of public-employee unions was the reason.

"We are never going to win most of these states until we can do something about those unions," one key operative said at a Washington dinner in November. "They have so much incentive to work hard politically because they are, in effect, electing their own bosses -- the Democrats who are going to pay them better and give them more benefits. And the Democrats have the incentive to be generous."

The Koch Brothers prepared to spend $88 Million in 2012

And compete with Karl Rove to define what the party stands for. From Politico:

In an expansion of their political footprint, the billionaire Koch brothers plan to contribute and steer a total of $88 million to conservative causes during the 2012 election cycle, according to sources, funding a new voter micro-targeting initiative, grassroots organizing efforts and television advertising campaigns.

In fact, as the annual Conservative Political Action Conference meets this week in Washington and conservatives assess the state of their movement, the Kochs’ network of non-profit groups, once centered around sleepy free-enterprise think tanks, seems to some to be emerging as a more ideological counterweight to the independent Republican political machine conceived by Bush-era GOP operatives Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie before the 2010 midterm elections.

The aggressive embrace of political activism by the Koch brothers, Charles and David, has cheered fiscal conservatives, who hope they will reorient the conservative political apparatus around free-market, small government principles and candidates, and away from the electability-over-principles approach they see Rove and Gillespie as embodying.

Tea Party Split on Civil Liberties?

House Republicans lose a vote on extending provisions of the Patriot Act when several conservatives join Democrats in votign against the bill.

- Story in NYT.
- Story in C-Span.

Glenn Greewald sees this as an important potential alliance:

It's long been clear that the best (and perhaps only) political hope for civil liberties in the U.S. is an alliance that transcends the standard Democrat v. GOP or left v. right dichotomies. Last night's surprising (and temporary) failure of the House to extend some of the most controversial powers of the Patriot Act -- an extension jointly championed by the House GOP leadership and the Obama White House -- perfectly illustrates why this is true.

read on...

Ideology v. Pragmatism / Campaigning v. Governing

This is a terrific piece by James Fallows on, among other things, the difference between running for office and holding office.  

Senate Tea Party Caucus Off to Slow Start

Some senators supported by the movement have refused to join the Senate Tea Party Caucus.

- Story in Slate.
- Wikipedia: House Tea Party Caucus.

More signs of a Tea Party / Mainstream Republican Rift?

NYT reports on the two separate responses given to the SOTUS:

In the party’s official reply, which immediately followed President Obama’s speech, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Budget Committee, said the country faced “a crushing burden of debt.” He vowed that Republicans, after assuming control of the House this year, would honor their pledge to provide Americans “a better choice and a different vision.”

“Americans are skeptical of both political parties, and that skepticism is justified — especially when it comes to spending,” Mr. Ryan said, striking a conciliatory tone as he vowed to work with the president to find cuts. “So hold all of us accountable.”

But Mr. Ryan, who was designated by Speaker John A. Boehner to respond to the president, did not have the last word. Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who founded the Tea Party Caucus last year, gave a response of her own in a message to the Tea Party Express, one of the movement’s largest groups of activists.

“For two years,” Ms. Bachmann said, “President Obama made promises, just like the ones we heard him make this evening, yet still we have high unemployment, devalued housing prices and the cost of gasoline is skyrocketing.”

Are Weak Unions the Reason that So Many Jobs Have Been Lost and Are Slow to Return?

In 2301, we will be discussing Federalist #10 soon enough along with the ongoing conflict between factions in society. Each interest in society, it is assumed, forms a groups - a faction - to fight for its interests. But some are more able to do this effectively than other a case in point recently has been labor unions.

Here's an argument that the decreasing power of labor in the US helps explain why unemployment is higher in the United States than in other countries. Here's a qualifier.

And for good measure, is American Exceptionalism a myth?

A Majority, If They Can Keep It

This is quite a long article, but it's an interesting take on the ideological nature of the American public. The author -- who is affiliated with the conservative think tank The American Enterprise Institute -- says that Americans (in the aggregate I suppose) are not conservative, but they are "anti-liberal." This is the same as saying that the public -- as opposed to political leaders - -does not fall neatly into little ideological camps.

Recent shifts in electoral results are driven by the changing affiliations of the white, non-college educated, working class. Here's an extended clip that will help us in 2301 when we look at political parties:

. . . working-class voters do not fit neatly into the left-right divide that characterizes debates between party elites: These voters favor low taxes and balanced budgets, but support government welfare-state programs like public education and state-sponsored retirement benefits. They are economically populist, and suspicious of free trade and high finance. They are culturally orthodox but morally moderate, meaning that, while they often hold conservative views regarding social issues, they do not think that debates about social issues will affect their own lives very much. They are patriotic and supportive of the military, but are as suspicious of "big military" as they are of "big government" and "big business."

This last point, the fear of "big" anything, gets to the heart of the working-class identity. Working-class voters are very aware of their position in national economic and social life. Muttart notes that they do not aspire to be "Type A business owners"; they want to spend time with their families, go to work, and do what is asked of them. They value structure and stability. They are hopeful for their economic future, but fearful it could all be lost. They value programs that can protect them against losing everything they have, and also those that can help their children achieve more than they ever had.

They also crave respect. In the 1930s — when members of the working class were frequently laid off or forced to work in unhealthy settings — they felt business owners did not value them as human beings; they therefore turned to labor unions and government for help. Today, the working class continues to fear that management does not respect them. But they believe that intellectuals, public elites, and government bureaucrats disdain them and their aspirations, too.

The working class's ambiguous political status becomes easier to understand once we compare these beliefs and views to those of the two party bases. White working-class voters do not like modern liberal Democrats, whose tax-and-spend policies hamper their ability to prosper. Indeed, polls of American white working-class voters show that, by nearly a two-to-one margin, they believe in the free market and think more government intervention in the economy is not in their interest. They also think liberals show disrespect for their beliefs and priorities and focus on issues of more concern to educated elites — such as cap-and-trade — than on issues closer to the hearts of the working class.

But white working-class voters also have problems with what they take to be conservative ideas. They do not want to see entitlements and education cut for the sake of being cut; they do not believe these programs are inconsistent with modern American freedom. Nor do they trust that conservatives understand the working class's precarious economic perch. They fear the consequences of an untrammeled market and wonder, as they have since the Great Depression, if conservatives really have their best interests at heart. To put it simply: Working-class voters believe in capitalism, but they also believe in the importance of a social safety net.
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Whites Realign From the Democrats to the Republicans

From the Atlantic:

Fully 60 percent of whites nationwide backed Republican candidates for the House of Representatives; only 37 percent supported Democrats, according to the National Election Poll exit poll conducted by Edison Research. Not even in Republicans' 1994 congressional landslide did they win that high a percentage of the white vote.

Moreover, those results may understate the extent of the white flight from the Democratic Party, according to a National Journal analysis of previously unpublished exit-poll data provided by Edison Research.

The new data show that white voters not only strongly preferred Republican House and Senate candidates but also registered deep disappointment with President Obama's performance, hostility toward the cornerstones of the current Democratic agenda, and widespread skepticism about the expansive role for Washington embedded in the party's priorities. On each of those questions, minority voters expressed almost exactly the opposite view from whites.

Evangelicals and Environmentalism

Slate reports on how attitudes towards the environment and global warming have created (at least a minor) rift within the evangelical movement.